As diverse social movements and members of ESCR-Net representing dozens of people’s-led organizations from across the world, we affirm our deepest solidarity with the people of Venezuela, Palestine, Cuba, Sudan, Kurdistan, Iran, and all people in their struggles for liberation, sovereignty, and self-determination.
The right to self-determination is fundamental and a cornerstone of our struggles. This right is a legal and moral imperative rooted in Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as in the UN Charter, UN Declaration on the Right to Development, UNDRIP, and ILO 169. Yet, peoples are prevented from exercising their right to self-determination, and we increasingly find our right to the future threatened largely by imperial violence.
We unequivocally denounce U.S. imperialism expressed through electoral interference, direct military interventions, and economic sanctions. We reject U.S. militarism, which continues to inflict and use violence as a primary means of maintaining colonial control over the global majority. We recognize that this violence is not abstract. It is experienced daily by women and girls in all their diversity, gender-oppressed peoples, Queer and Trans people, Black and afro-descendent people, Indigenous Peoples, Peasant and working-class communities, and other peoples made marginalized.
The recent illegal actions taken by the United States in Venezuela are not only violations of international law and the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people, but also a violent reaction to a shifting imperial world order that poses a threat to U.S. hegemony. In this regard, we call on the U.S. government to uphold the principles of justice and international law, to immediately return to a rules-based international order, and demand the release of Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores.
We call for an end to colonial and capitalist systems of power, which perpetuate violence and center corporate power over people’s power. Corporate capture and corporate impunity must end. Corporations, especially multinational corporations from the global north, are responsible for the multiple crises we face, and they must be held accountable for their actions. Corporations have captured governments, the media, and multilateral and democratic institutions, working to serve the interests of profit-hungry corporations at the expense of peoples and the planet. The extractive economy and its dependence on fossil fuels have only brought death and destruction to our lands and our bodies. All while the future of the multilateral system remains hanging in the balance. The multilateral system remains fundamental to the guarantee of hard-fought rights. The withdrawal from major international agreements and treaties by the United States signals a dangerous precedent for other right-wing, authoritarian, and fascist regimes.
We are the global majority, and our strength lies in our solidarity. We recognize that the challenges we face may only continue to grow, but so too will popular struggles that will defend the rights of our peoples and movements. In this moment of extreme threats, our voices remain united in the spirit of liberation and peoples’ sovereignty. As a global network, ESCR-Net works to connect diverse struggles across regions, building our collective power to drive systemic change and shape a new future rooted in human rights, respect for Mother Earth, and dignity. We are committed to international solidarity, recognizing that diverse movement struggles are interconnected and intersectional. We understand that we are all confronted by a set of common conditions that undermine the realization of human rights, as articulated in ESCR-Net’s common charter for collective struggle. The root causes of our oppression are the same, and therefore, we can only overcome them through unified struggle.
Let us continue to organize, raise our voices in our communities, and connect our thinking at the global level. This world does not belong to capitalism; it belongs to all human beings who inhabit it. In the face of new threats of appropriation of our natural commons by technology companies, this struggle is not only about the present, but about the future of those who come after us. Let us be part of building a more just global world and for the “buen vivir” of the peoples of the world.
The peoples of the world organized in ESCR-Net.
