Millennium Forum
Alanna Hartzok
[Reprinted from
GroundSwell, 2000]
History was made at the first Millennium Forum with 1350
representatives of over 1,000 non-governmental and other civil
society organizations from more than 100 countries gathered at the
United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22-26 May 2000.
The Forum's Declaration and Agenda for Action built upon a common
vision and the work begun at civil society conferences and the UN
world conferences of the 1990's. The Declaration is intended to draw
the attention of governments to the urgency of implementing the
commitments they have made and as a framework for channeling our
collective energies by reclaiming globalization for and by the
people.
Two Georgists, Tatiana Roshkoshnaya, Director of the Land and
Public Welfare Foundation, based in St. Petersburg, Russia and
Alanna Hartzok, UN NGO Representative for the London-based
International Union for Land Value Taxation, worked together during
the Millennium Forum to inject resource rental language into the
Forum Declaration. They also distributed the Green Tax Policy/People
Planet Finance brochure to the other Forum participants and met with
officials of the UN Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS or HABITAT)
and the UN Development Program while they were in New York.
Statements from the Declaration and Agenda for Action relevant to
earth rights and green taxation policy include:
Poverty eradication is not an automatic consequence of economic
growth but requires purposeful action to redistribute wealth and
land....
To give particular attention to eradication of unequal
taxation, tax havens, and money-laundering operations and impose
new forms of taxation, such as the Tobin tax, and to regional and
national capital controls. To direct the international financial
institutions to eliminate the negative conditionalities of
structural adjustment programs (SAP's)....
Sustainable funds could be raised through a currency transfer
tax, also helping to reduce currency speculation and TAX ON THE
RENTAL VALUE OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES.
To promote the establishment of micro credit facilities,
especially for farmers and women, to promote their access to forms
of land tenure that facilitate access to and ownership of land.
Among other things, the Security Council must take more action
to prevent conflict over raw materials and other basic resources.
The UN should set up expert groups and begin the necessary
intergovernmental negotiations towards establishing alternative
revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use
of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of
the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange
transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.