Resources: Audiovisual

The last decade's developments in computation are major topics of debate among business, policymakers, and social movements alike. Blockchain, Bitcoin, smart contracts, the Internet of Things, machine translation, image recognition, the Earth Bank of Codes, artificial intellligence – all are understood to be not only business opportunities but also political and environmental issues.

This webdoc captures conversations between activists from diverse social movements about obstacles to their work through the lens of the "commons".

The Global Environmental Justice Group at the University of East Anglia has produced a series of video interviews, Testimonies of Justice. Larry Lohmann outlines some of the work The Corner House does and its approach.

The gap between rich and poor has widened massively over the past 30 years, within and between countries. Such inequality does not come about by accident or simple mismanagement. It is best understood as 'a proxy for how effectively an elite has constructed institutions that extract value from the rest of society.' This presentation argues that public-private partnerships are such a set of institutions, with important implications for activism to challenge them.

A BBC radio programme asks whether the plea bargaining strategy adopted by the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the past two years "to punish firms who use bribery and corruption to win contracts abroad" is working. It queries several aspects of the SFO's proposed settlement with BAE Systems, including an agreement that appears to give immunity from prosecution to any individual who might have committed wrong-doing in those affairs.

BBC2 Television's Newsnight current affairs programme summarised its 8 minute broadcast: "In 2006, the British government scotched a serious fraud investigation into BAE's biggest deal, with Saudi Arabia. Now, Peter Marshall [Newsnight presenter] reveals that the company may have returned the favour. It has stopped a billion pound insurance contract which tied the government to the Saudi business." Information about stopping the insurance contract came to light as a result of legal correspondence between The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade with the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department.

On 12-13 March 2009, development, environment and human rights groups from Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK, and local residents of the island of Jersey organised a seminar to discuss the necessity for tax haven reform and to exchange views on how governments and civil society can work towards achieving a "just transition" for tax havens that would not impact on poorer residents.