Originally published under the title “What are Quakers doing at the EU?” in the newsletter Around Europe (Quaker Council for European Affairs, or QCEA) There is a wide variety of non-governmental organisations in Brussels and in Strasbourg. Many are the EU advocacy offices of global organisations. Some are faith groups promoting …
[originally published in qceablog.wordpress.com] The Council of Europe (CoE) is a European institution focussed on promoting and facilitating human rights, democracy and the Rule of Law. It has many more member states -47- than its cousin the European Union (EU). The CoE in fact includes all the EU Member States. All these …
I wrote recently about corporate social responsibility and the need for this concept to be stretched and deepened to contribute more to changing our society. We need the equivalent to a mid-term review, to fundamentally question our economic system, to examine our assumption that economic growth is a good in …
I recently had an opportunity to do some walking around what Quakers call the ‘1652 Country’. To those, like me, who are not very familiar with English geography, let me explain that this is north of Lancaster, on the western side of the narrow bit of England between the bulges …
One of the most important recent ‘discoveries’ in economics is not about either growth or jobs. It is about people. We have discovered that we are not actually the logical, cool, and selfish people that economic models often assume we are. In fact, we are so full of feeling-affected judgements …
The Dutch press is giving a lot of attention to the new amendment to the amnesty law in Suriname. The amendment now protects the suspects in the ‘December murders’, a 1982 rounding up and extra-judicial execution of critics of the government. The current president of Suriname is in fact one …
I travel in order to learn about other cultures. There are only a limited number of ways to learn about another culture. One, of course, is to read about it, but we are often very aware that this is framed by the perspective of the author. Another way is to …