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indigenous rights
As Left-Wing Opposition Banned, Ecuador Court Rejects Terrible UAE Treaty
The decision blocks the right-wing president's unconstitutional attempt to bypass the National Assembly. Still, this is just one step in Ecuador's continued fight for its Constitution and its democracy.
Mar 13, 2026
In a major rebuke to President Daniel Noboa, Ecuador's Constitutional Court ruled unanimously on March 9 that his controversial Bilateral Investment Treaty with the United Arab Emirates cannot be fast-tracked and must be approved by the National Assembly.
The decision blocks the right-wing president's unconstitutional attempt to bypass the National Assembly. Still, this is just one step in Ecuador's continued fight for its Constitution and its democracy.
This treaty is the test case for a far broader corporate coup, one that aims to resurrect a legal weapon Ecuador’s people have repeatedly rejected: Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
The treaty, signed in a rushed ceremony in December 2025, was littered with errors, referencing the non-existent "United Arab States" and citing provisions that aren't there. When Ecuador’s pro-corporate Constitutional Court rightly demanded a corrected text, it asked for an English version, a bizarre move in a Spanish-speaking republic.
“We are witnessing a government ignoring its own Constitution and the will of its people to serve the interests of transnational capital."
In response, Noboa issued an extraordinary decree authorizing Ecuador’s ambassador to unilaterally correct the text, bypassing normal diplomatic and legal channels.
The court has now sided with Ecuador’s progressive Constitution. However, that is not where this fight ends; instead, the treaty will have to be taken through a two-stage review process, unless Noboa decides to ignore the court altogether—a move that would be unsurprising given the young autocrat’s continued destruction and dismissal of Ecuador’s other branches of government.
The Constitutional Court will have 30 days to conduct a second, deeper review of the treaty's content to verify its full conformity with the Constitution. If the treaty survives that scrutiny (or if the court does not respond in 30 days), it will go to the National Assembly, where it requires absolute majority approval. Currently, Noboa’s party only has two-fifths of the total assembly seats, with leftist, pro-Indigenous, and some centrist parties occupying the rest.
The urgency of this corporate agenda explains the government's simultaneous brutal crackdown on democratic opposition. In a move that has drawn international condemnation, an electoral judge, on the request of the Noboa-aligned prosecutor general, suspended the country's largest opposition party, the left-wing Revolución Ciudadana (RC), for nine months.
The RC would not be able to conduct any political activities, or run in the 2027 local elections. The left-wing party, which won 44% of the vote in the last presidential election, controls the country's largest cities, including Quito and Guayaquil.
Interestingly, the right-wing pro-Trump billionaire president has himself been credibly accused of electoral fraud, corruption, and stakes in the drug-trafficking trade.
The case against RC relies on the testimony of an individual awaiting trial for child sexual abuse, who was given preferential treatment in prison in exchange for implicating the party on cooked-up money laundering charges. This follows the February pre-trial detention of Guayaquil's Mayor, Aquiles Alvarez, another opposition leader targeted by the prosecutor general. This thus follows a long pattern of Noboa's crackdown on opposition. The right is also cutting off the opposition's ability to vote against Noboa's measures in the assembly.
The UAE BIT contains ISDS provisions that grant foreign investors the right to sue Ecuador in international tribunals for billions over laws or policies that harm their profits, and those they expect to make in the future, including environmental and health regulations that protect local and marginalized populations. This is explicitly prohibited by Article 422 of Ecuador’s Constitution, a prohibition upheld by the people in national referenda in 2024 and again in 2025.
“This is all very clearly unconstitutional,” says Ladan Mehranvar, a senior legal researcher at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment who focuses on international investment law and human rights. “They are trying to push the BIT through by sidestepping constitutional safeguards, including the requirement of prior approval by the National Assembly,” she added.
“We are witnessing a government ignoring its own Constitution and the will of its people to serve the interests of transnational capital,” said Pedro Labayen Herrera and Mario Osorio, both researchers with the Center for Economic and Political Research (CEPR) in Washington. “They are fast-tracking the UAE treaty by claiming it requires only executive ratification, thus avoiding the scrutiny of the Ecuadorian legislature and the public. That is simply false.”
There are serious concerns about the court’s independence. One justice, Claudia Salgado, nominated by Noboa, comes from a family of legal and arbitration specialists and has previously written on Ecuador’s constitutional ban on ISDS. Her apparent shift, alongside pressure from an executive that has publicly attacked and threatened the Constitutional Court judges, paints a picture of a state institution under siege. “Either the Constitutional Court is captured, or it feels threatened,” Mehranvar noted.
So why such a reckless, rushed push for a treaty with the UAE? Because it is the blueprint and the battering ram for something far more consequential, namely, a Free Trade Agreement with Canada and other pro-corporate actions that would permanently lock in ISDS for the (mostly foreign) mining industry.
There is also significant personal corruption at play. The Noboa family holds a significant stake in Silvercorp, a Canadian mining company, as well as other financial holdings with direct interests in ISDS and the president’s deregulation crusade.
An ISDS chapter in a Canada-Ecuador FTA would directly benefit the president’s own financial interests, allowing corporate actors, potentially including his family’s holdings, to sue the Ecuadorian state. “ISDS is a tool for the Noboa family to protect their own financial interest,” said Herrera and Osorio.
This agenda is being synchronized with a brutal domestic deregulation campaign. In late January, Noboa proposed gutting Ecuador’s Mining Law by replacing the mandatory environmental license with a simplified authorization, which local Indigenous groups say decimates their constitutional right to prior consultation, a key tool they use to oppose harmful extractive projects. Ecuador is one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth; about half of its territory is made up of the Amazon rainforest and Indigenous lands.
Combined with ISDS, this creates a vicious trap—remove environmental safeguards now, deter future governments from reinstating them, and use international tribunals to sue any future government that tries to reinstate them for “indirect expropriation” of future profits.
Companies could do this even without any intent to finish the projects, or invest while knowing that the projects are legally or politically untenable, winning out on billions of dollars in Ecuadorian taxpayer funds, at a time when Ecuador is facing a historic financial, energy, and security crisis, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the Environment has argued that ISDS has catastrophic consequences for climate action and human rights. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has even argued ISDS is “litigation terrorism,” while even the libertarian Cato Institute has said the mechanism actually threatens the rule of law, growth, and investment.
This deal and its progenitors represent the fusion of state and corporate power against democracy. It was preceded by the violent crushing of protests against subsidy removals, the criminalization of water defenders, and the continued advancement of mining projects in sensitive ecosystems like the Amazon and near the Yasuní National Park, despite, once again, popular referenda opposing them. The Noboa government has conducted a war against democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.
If the court and National Assembly allow this breach, the floodgates open for a corporate takeover dressed as trade policy, with only global mining capital standing to gain. Ecuador’s people have resisted corporatocracy many times over. Their government is now trying to force it on them by decree, while suppressing all opposition. At a time when global democracy and rights are falling off a cliff, the world must heed this crucial test.
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Oreo’s Sweet Image Hides a Bitter Truth About Forests and Human Rights
Oreo may seem harmless. But when palm oil is sourced from destroyed rainforest or land taken without consent, the cost is not just environmental—it is human.
Feb 19, 2026
Oreo is marketed as “milk’s favorite cookie.” But behind that familiar blue package is a supply chain tied to rainforest destruction and violence against the people who defend their land.
Mondelēz International, the corporate giant that makes Oreo, has built a global snack empire worth nearly $40 billion a year. Its products line grocery shelves across the country. What most consumers never see is the palm oil that goes into those products—or the damage connected to its production.
Palm oil expansion remains one of the leading drivers of tropical deforestation. It is also linked to land grabs, intimidation, and violence against Indigenous and local communities who resist losing their forests.
According to Rainforest Action Network’s 2025 Keep Forests Standing Scorecard, Mondelēz ranked last among major consumer goods companies on deforestation and human rights safeguards. The company scored just 4 out of 24 possible points. Most alarming, it received zero points for having a public policy protecting Human Rights Defenders—people who face threats, criminalization, and violence for standing up to destructive development.
Communities should not be displaced for cookies.
Between 2015 and 2024, more than 6,400 attacks and over 1,000 killings of land and environmental defenders were documented worldwide. Industrial agriculture is a major driver of this violence.
These defenders are farmers, Indigenous leaders, journalists, teachers, and community members. They are protecting forests that stabilize the climate, regulate rainfall, and support biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth. They are also protecting their homes.
Mondelēz has been exposed more than once for sourcing palm oil linked to illegal deforestation in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem—often called the “Orangutan Capital of the World.” The Leuser region is one of the last places on Earth where critically endangered species including rhinos, elephants, tigers, and orangutans still coexist in the wild. It is also home to Indigenous communities who depend on intact forests for survival.
Satellite monitoring continues to show forest loss in protected areas within this ecosystem. That means safeguards are failing.
Mondelēz promotes its “Snacking Made Right” campaign as proof of sustainability leadership. But marketing language does not stop chainsaws. Without enforceable policies and independent monitoring, companies continue to profit while forests fall.
The absence of a Human Rights Defender policy is not a minor oversight. It sends a message through the supply chain that violence and intimidation are not red lines. When corporations fail to adopt zero-tolerance policies against threats and criminalization, suppliers operate with fewer consequences.
This is not just about environmental damage. It is about whether communities have the right to say no when their land is targeted for development. It is about Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. It is about whether corporate profit outweighs human safety.
Deforestation is accelerating the climate crisis. Tropical rainforests absorb carbon and cool the planet. When they are cleared, that stored carbon is released, intensifying global warming. From stronger hurricanes to prolonged droughts and wildfires, the effects are already visible.
Corporations that rely on forest-risk commodities have the power to change this trajectory. Mondelēz could require full traceability for its palm oil supply. It could suspend suppliers linked to deforestation or violence. It could adopt a clear, public Human Rights Defender policy with zero tolerance for intimidation and criminalization. It could require proof that communities have granted Free, Prior, and Informed Consent before land is developed.
Instead, it continues business as usual.
Oreo may seem harmless. But when palm oil is sourced from destroyed rainforest or land taken without consent, the cost is not just environmental—it is human.
Communities should not be displaced for cookies. Forest defenders should not risk their lives so multinational corporations can maintain margins.
Mondelēz has the size and influence to shift industry standards. What it lacks is the political will.
Protecting forests starts with protecting the people who defend them. Until companies like Mondelēz adopt enforceable policies that prioritize human rights and end deforestation in their supply chains, their sustainability claims will ring hollow.
Consumers deserve snacks that do not come at the expense of forests and communities. And the people risking their lives to protect the planet deserve more than silence from the corporations profiting from their land.
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'Insane': Trump Threatens 8 Allies With New Tariffs for Opposing Greenland Takeover
"Trump has no legal authority to tariff American allies to bully them into backing his brainless attempt to seize Greenland," one US lawmaker said.
Jan 17, 2026
President Donald Trump on Saturday announced new tariffs on eight European countries that oppose his plan to annex Greenland hours after thousands of people gathered in Denmark and Greenland to declare, "Greenland is not for sale."
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face a 10% tariff beginning February 1, which would jump to a 25% tariff on June 1.
"This Tariff will be due and payable until such a time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland," Trump wrote from his home at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The announcement seemed to deliver on a threat the president made Friday to impose tariffs on countries "if they don't go along with" his designs on Greenland. It also ignored the sentiment of the thousands of people who marched in Denmark and Greenland's capitals wearing red hats with the slogan, "Make America Go Away."
"You cannot buy Greenland, you cannot buy a people. It is so wrong, disrespectful to think that you can purchase a country and a people."
“We are demonstrating against American statements and ambitions to annex Greenland,” Camilla Siezing, chairwoman of the Inuit Association, said in a statement. “We demand respect for the Danish Realm and for Greenland’s right to self-determination.”
Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut—an association of Greenlanders who live in Denmark that helped organize the demonstrations—said at the Copenhagen protest, as Deutsche Welle reported: "We are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up... Greenland and the Greenlanders have involuntarily become the front in the fight for democracy and human rights."
One Greenlander who attended the Copenhagen protest was Naja Mathilde Rosing.
"America has a sense of feeling they can steal land from the Native Americans, steal land from the Indigenous Hawaiian people, steal land from the Indigenous Inuit from Alaska," she told NPR. "You cannot buy Greenland, you cannot buy a people. It is so wrong, disrespectful to think that you can purchase a country and a people."
Protests were also held in the Danish cities of Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense.
Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark with a population of nearly 57,000, 85% of whom do not want to join the United States.
Greenland's Prime Minister prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen joined a crowd of 5,000 in the island's capital city of Nuuk, where people carried signs reading, "Greenland is already great," and "Yankee, Go Home!"
“We have seen what (Trump) does in Venezuela and Iran," one protester, named Patricia, told CNN. "He doesn’t respect anything. He just takes what he thinks is his… He misuses his power.”
Yet Trump did not acknowledge the feelings of Greenlanders in his post on Saturday. Instead, he was focused on the actions of eight European countries that have sent small numbers of troops to the island, accusing them of "playing this very dangerous game."
The leaders of the eight countries and the European Union pushed back against Trump's threats.
French President Emmanuel Macron likened Trump's designs on Greenland to Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
"No intimidation or threat will influence us—neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations," he wrote on social media. "Tariff threats are unacceptable and have no place in this context. Europeans will respond in a united and coordinated manner should they be confirmed. We will ensure that European sovereignty is upheld. It is in this spirit that I will engage with our European partners."
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson posted: "We will not let ourselves be blackmailed. Only Denmark and Greenland decide on issues concerning Denmark and Greenland."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote: "Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty."
Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, meanwhile, said Trump's tariff announcement came "as a surprise," noting that it followed a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier in the week, which he described as "constructive."
Trump's latest tariff threat also drew criticism from US lawmakers.
"To threaten Denmark—and now six other NATO allies—in a crusade to take Greenland threatens to blow up the NATO alliance that has kept Americans safe and destroy our standing in the world as a trustworthy ally," wrote Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Denmark that coincided with Saturday's protests.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said: "Trump has no legal authority to tariff American allies to bully them into backing his brainless attempt to seize Greenland. This is against the law, it’s a total disaster for America, and Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court need to find their spines and stop it."
" Donald Trump wants to be Tariff King, but he's nothing more than a tax troll with no legal authority to levy these tariffs, no support from the American people, and no support from his allies."
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also called on Congress to act.
"Trump is raising tariffs on eight NATO allies because they rightly support Denmark's sovereignty in Greenland. Destroying our closest alliances to take Greenland—which Denmark lets us use freely already—is insane. Congress must say NO," Sanders wrote on social media.
Murray posted: "To my Republican colleagues: ENOUGH. It's time for the Senate to vote to block these tariffs and to block the use of military force against Greenland. Trump is tearing apart our alliances in real time and the economic and diplomatic consequences will be catastrophic."
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) also appealed to Republican colleagues, and pointed out that it would ultimately be Americans who would pay higher prices as a result of the tariffs.
"Troops from European countries are arriving in Greenland to defend the territory from us," he wrote on social media. "Let that sink in. And now Trump is setting tariffs on our allies, making you pay more to try to get territory we don’t need. The damage this President is doing to our reputation and our relationships is growing, making us less safe. If something doesn’t change we will be on our own with adversaries and enemies in every direction. Republicans in Congress need to stand up to Trump."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) posted a video from the streets of Boston, evoking the spirit of the American Revolution.
"Donald Trump wants to be Tariff King, but he's nothing more than a tax troll with no legal authority to levy these tariffs, no support from the American people, and no support from his allies. Enough is enough," he said.
Ultimately, Trump's ability to play "tariff king" will be determined by the Supreme Court, which could rule as soon as next week on the legality of many of his tariffs.
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