TY Petition for Politicians

Global Citizenship Education (G.C.E.) is a core part of Millstreet Community School and Transition Year students have opportunities to put their studies into action. As a result of learning about how large companies exploit landowners in smaller holdings to create big plantations, the students decided to see how they could help. Research revealed the U.N. is campaigning to create an international law that will forbid this activity.

The Transition Year G.C.E. group, with the aid of Trocaire resources, have prepared a letter for all candidates in the election, and have sent this to the nine candidates standing in the Cork North-West constituency.  In the letter they urged all the candidates, if elected to the Dáil, to help lend the Irish government's support to a draft UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights. 

It would make respecting the human rights a legal requirement for companies.  It would make it mandatory for companies to assess the potential human rights impact of their planned operations on local communities, for example, indigenous people in developing countries. These letters were accompanied by a petition signed by hundreds of MCS students, who feel strongly about how people are exploited by some of the world’s biggest and well-known companies. See https://www.trocaire.org/business-and-human-rights/why-do-we-need-global-treaty-business-human-rights for more information.