Think Global_February 2026

THINK GLOBAL

Act locally with Global Justice Now

Feburary 2026

Inserts Trade

• ARTICLE: ‘The Law of the Jungle’, written by Nick Dearden for Tribune on Trump’s foreign policy

We can resist Trump’s new world disorder

James O’Nions Head of movement building

With Donald Trump in the White House, every week seems to bring new horrors.

The shocking kidnap of Venezuela’s president at the beginning of January was followed by a renewed attempt by the Trump regime to annex Greenland. For the last year, Trump has wielded the threat and imposition of tariffs as a means to rip up any semblance of a rules-based global economy, replacing it with ‘might makes right’.

Meanwhile Trump’s colonial Board of Peace for Gaza looks increasingly like an attempt to displace the United Nations completely with a handpicked committee of far right politicians and war criminals. We may never really have had a genuine international rules-based order, but we’re going to miss it when it’s gone.

In Minnesota, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have upped the ante again, in an anti-migrant rampage which has felt like an occupying force, with two peaceful protestors murdered with apparent impunity, and seven more ICE-related deaths this year alone. Putting these pieces together, it is becoming increasingly clear that what we’re looking at in the United States is a kind of modern fascism. It has not yet fully displaced democracy, but its direction is plain.

Yet what has also stood out in Minnesota is the way ordinary people are defending their neighbours. Churches and the labour movement have been key to this fightback, which has ranged from community warning systems when ICE is spotted to a wellobserved general strike.

Think Global is Global Justice Now’s activist newsletter, published three times a year, with monthly email supplements (Think Global Extra)

Editing: Daisy Pearson, Guy Taylor and James O’Nions

Cover photo: Global Justice Bradford celebrate the fourth anniversary of their weekly West Yorkshire Pension Fund vigil.

Around the world we are seeing mass resistance to this fascist creep, and Global Justice Now is part of that fight. Fascist movements have historically relied on alliances with powerful corporate interests, and under Trump that role is increasingly played by big tech. We’ve already started opposing trade measures with the US which would open the doors to big tech power, and in April we will be hosting a major activist conference: Resisting Big Tech Empires (see page 7).

We’ve also just launched a new podcast with the Stop Trump Coalition and Another Europe is Possible. ‘Counterpower’ aims to build the capacity of internationalists to respond to the growing threat from the nationalist right (see page 5). What we do matters – let’s rise to that challenge.

News from Global Justice Now

In the media

Last year our campaigns were covered all over the press. We had 118 pieces of media coverage in total, comprising: 40 reactive quotes and mentions of Global Justice Now, 24 opinion pieces, 29 original exclusive stories, 17 broadcast media appearances, six letters to the editor and two articles by newspaper columnists.

We were covered in 53 media outlets, including the Guardian, BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Reuters, Financial Times, The Times, The Mirror, POLITICO, Metro, and left media including Declassified, Tribune, Novara and Canary.

More recently we’ve been focusing on the USUK pharma deal. As news of the deal hit the headlines, we had letters to the editor published in the Financial Times, Guardian and Mirror. We secured an exclusive with the Mirror showing that the pharma deal would lead to almost 16,000 deaths every year. We also worked with Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty who wrote about the perils of the deal, while Tim landed an article in LBC.

On climate, Jane spoke to the Morning Star as our Scotland team participated in a thousandsstrong climate march in Glasgow. And Global Justice Dundee were covered in the National for their protest outside the Scottish parliament demanding the government oppose Rosebank.

On trade, Cleodie uncovered a second ISDS case facing the UK, brought by a billionaire Russian oligarch – this was picked up in the Times, the Observer and Byline Times. We also worked

Action checklist

Corporate courts

with George Monbiot, who focused his Guardian column on the Cumbria ISDS case. And Anita wrote an article for LBC about Trump’s ongoing tariff wars and threats to Greenland.

Goodbye Liz!

At the end of October we said goodbye to Liz Murray who left Global Justice Now after 17 years as our head of Scottish campaigns. Thanks to her, Global Justice Now has maintained a high profile in Scotland’s political scene, and she’ll be much missed by staff and no doubt by activists in Scotland too. She has taken up a new and equally vital role helping to grow Scotland’s community energy sector.

We’re not currently in a position to replace Liz, but Jane Herbstritt will continue to support local groups and campaign work in Scotland as part of the movement building team. Despite the drop in Scottish staff capacity, we’re still committed to pushing the Scottish government to play a progressive role in the world through Scotland-specific campaigning.

Order leaflets, organise a talk, or contact your MP: help us end ISDS for good!

Pharma

Meet with your MP and ask them to defend the NHS from Trump’s bullying

Big tech

Urge the trade secretary not to sign a toxic US trade deal

General

Book our national gathering in London: Saturday 25 April

Plan your travel for the Together Alliance demo in London: Saturday 28 March

Trade justice

Another ISDS case for the UK

In the last edition of Think Global, we reported that investors in the abandoned Cumbria coal mine (ruled unlawful in the high court over its climate impacts) are now suing the UK for lost potential profits. In Exhibit A of establishment rot, the lawyer representing the Singaporean firm raising the ISDS case is none other than Geoffrey Cox, MP for Tavistock and Torridge.

On top of that, the UK is now also being sued by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. European countries have placed sanctions on Russian big business over the war on Ukraine; many of these are now being challenged via corporate courts.

We’ve won on ISDS before; grassroots campaigning got the UK to leave the ISDSriddled Energy Charter Treaty. With the UK now facing TWO corporate court claims we have a real opportunity to toxify the ISDS regime in Britain – and finally get the government to remove ISDS from its trade deals. This latest case will show MPs it’s not just climate action that’s at risk, but our political independence too.

To end ISDS for good we need help to get the word out. Our A5 leaflets will help you spread the word, and organising a talk or public meeting is a great way to get new people properly engaged in the issue. To order materials or for help organising an event, contact us at activism@globaljustice.org.uk.

Get your MP to act

On 4 February, we’re organising a parliamentary event on ISDS, which will lay out this new area of risk to a group of MPs. But they need to be hearing about it from concerned citizens too. If you haven’t yet, ask your MP to act: globaljustice.org.uk/isds-mp, but you could also consider meeting with them too.

Profiteering MP held to account

Global Justice Now activists recently coordinated two aligned protests to expose the scandal that a sitting MP is legal counsel for the overseas hedge fund currently suing the UK. We’ve been coordinating with climate campaigners in Geoffrey Cox’s constituency in Devon, who are outraged their MP is putting the interests of fossil capital before their futures,

which depend on having a planet we can still live on. Staging a mock trial, the constituents cross-examined Cox on his lucrative second job making millions at the expense of his own government’s climate action.

They were bolstered by Global Justice Youth’s London group, who organised a twin action at the office of Geoffrey Cox’s law firm in London. Their creative stunt engaged passersby, raising the alarm about dangerous corporate courts and the City of London’s role providing the legal scaffolding of this toxic regime.

Taking the ISDS fight global

As reported in January’s official side event we ran at COP30 in Belém last November with Colombia’s environment minister marked the first time ISDS was raised at a UN climate summit. It marked the beginning of an exciting project with international allies to build a coalition of governments committed to withdrawing from the corporate courts’ regime.

We also held a powerful event at the People’s Summit (organised by social movements alongside the COP) in which we heard from frontline communities and trade campaigners.

ISDS on the agenda

We’ve been working hard with our international allies to ensure corporate courts will be on the agenda for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (more about this on page 8). We’ll continue working to influence international discussions, so we can help build a coalition of countries willing to step away from ISDS– and at home, ensuring that the UK comes under pressure for being a laggard.

A new podcast from Global Justice Now, Another Europe is Possible and the Stop Trump Coalition. The internationalist fightback against corporate power and fascism needs all the tools at our disposal we can find. Audio-visual content has become increasingly important for educating and organising movements, and new technology has made it more affordable. So we’re working with allies to produce a new fortnightly podcast, which is also filmed, ensuring we have plenty of clips for social media. Expect analysis of global politics from a progressive perspective and news about the movement for a better world.

Find the first two episodes on various platforms at counterpower.uk

power A5 leaflet (Jan 2025)

Scrap the UK-Colombia investment treaty MP briefing (Oct 2024)

Resisting green colonialism for a just transition Six-page briefing (May 2024).

Contact us to order these or view them at globaljustice.org.uk/resources

Big tech

Our packed-out session at The World Transformed in October on big tech, tariffs and neoliberal trade deals.

A bad deal, getting worse

You might remember that back in September, Keir Starmer was celebrating a new technology pact with the US, signed during Trump’s state visit to the UK. The deal was never anything to be celebrated – it looks set to deepen the country’s dependency on big tech firms, including by paving the way for more energyhungry data centres. It also commits the UK to harmonising regulations with the US on vital issues like AI and nuclear, even as the US has come under fire for prioritising fast roll out over safety.

But now the US is demanding even more from the UK. In December it was reported that Trump had suspended the fulfilment of September’s technology pact and will demand many more concessions, including on our right to regulate and control big tech. The UK is not alone in this: we know the US has been pushing countries around the world to scrap taxes that claw back a small fraction of the revenue big tech makes in their countries.

We’ll be developing more materials on the threat from big tech in the coming months. For now, if you haven’t already, please write to the trade secretary urging him not to sign a toxic trade deal with Trump: globaljustice.org.uk/ trump-trade

Public meeting: Stop the Edinburgh data centre

When: Thursday 5 March, 6.30-8pm Where: Augustine United Church, EH1 1EL

A flurry of speculative planning applications for hyperscale data centres has hit the Scottish planning system. This follows the announcement of the US-UK Technology Pact during Trump’s state visit, which promised investment in new AI data centres across the UK.

Despite their enormous energy and water demands, the fact that they increase our reliance on US big tech corporations, and the blot they will be on our landscapes, the Scottish government and local councils seem happy to wave them through. Join us to hear about proposals for a new data centre in Edinburgh, and help us build a campaign to stop them!

Speaking, we have Kat Jones from the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, who is leading a campaign to protect Scottish communities from these massive new data centres, along with Global Justice Now’s Scotland campaigner Jane Herbstritt, and journalist and campaigner Rachael Revesz.

Find out more at globaljustice.org.uk/stopdatacentres-scotland.

Key resources

A trade deal with Trump Nine-page campaign briefing (April 2025)

The dangers of the US trade deal MP briefing (April 2025)

Monopoly capitalism 26-page report (March 2023)

Contact us to order these or view them at globaljustice.org.uk/resources

National gathering

When: Saturday 25 April, 11am-6pm

Where: London South Bank University

• Cory Doctorow, multi-award-winning novelist and campaigner

• Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, India

• Sofia Scassera, Our World is Not for Sale, Argentina

• James Meadway, Macrodose podcast

• Khem Rhogaly, Common Wealth

• Cecilia Rikap, digital sovereignty researcher

• Dan McQuillan, author of Resisting AI

The technology that underpins almost every part of our lives is controlled by a tiny handful of corporations, who are shaping the world in their interests. In the pursuit of profit, they fuel division, enable far-right authoritarianism, accelerate automated warfare, drive a massive upward transfer of wealth, and deepen environmental destruction – all while posing as the visionaries of the future.

Today’s technological revolution is unprecedented in speed and scale, but it echoes older histories of enclosure and dispossession. But the future does not have to belong to unaccountable tech monopolies. By challenging corporate power, democratising digital infrastructure, and putting people and planet before profit, we can reclaim technology as a public good and build a better future for everyone. Sign up free using the QR code on the back page.

Pharma

Campaigners outside the Department for Business and Trade, highlighting the real cost of pharma profiteering.

Trump’s NHS raid

As we reported last month, the UK recently bowed to Donald Trump, agreeing it would double the amount the UK spends on new medicines from 0.3% to 0.6% of GDP – this would be a bonanza for big pharma and a disaster for the NHS. We’ve been working to get public scrutiny of this deal, and you can catch up with some of our letters and articles we’ve had published in the media section.

Thank you also to everyone who wrote to their MP asking them to join our event in parliament where we briefed politicians and media on the very costly US-UK pharma deal. It was a really good meeting and vital that MPs understand fully the impacts of this agreement, which could cost the NHS up to £9 billion a year.

What you can do

More MPs are beginning to speak out about this – and the Lib Dems have now called for this budget-busting deal to be scrapped. If you have the chance to meet your MP and help us build the pressure, you can use our new briefing on the resources section of our website, or at globaljustice.org.uk/us-pharma-deal.

If you haven’t already, please write to your MP to ensure this deal gets proper scrutiny, using our easy online tool: globaljustice.org.uk/nhs-mp

Climate justice

2025 went out with a bang

The fight against fossil fuels is alive and kicking, with activists globally and in the UK chalking up some major wins at the end of last year. These included:

• Colombia and the Netherlands used COP30, the latest UN climate change conference, to announce they would be hosting the First International Conference on the Just Transition from Fossil Fuels in April, a significant potential step towards a Fossil Fuel Treaty. This is a huge win for every single one of us that’s campaigned for a treaty over the last few years.

• The creation of the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Just Transition was a significant victory for activists at COP30 and civil society around the world who campaigned throughout the conference. It will enable us to keep holding governments’ feet to the fire about a just transition for COPs far into the future.

• The UK government announced it would move forward with its promise to ban new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

This is a major shift that everyone who has been fighting fossil fuels in the UK has contributed to. The only downside is that it doesn’t apply to the Rosebank oilfield –more on that below.

Fighting fossil fuels in 2026

Of course, we still have a huge fight on our hands. Billionaires and big oil are working against us at every turn, trying to keep destructive fossil fuels alive to line their already fat pockets. Their henchman, Donald Trump, is also doing their bidding from the White House and creating global chaos that is so pervasive, it’s easy for people to forget the urgency of the climate crisis.

This year will see the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative transitioning towards a more diplomatic phase of their global campaigning. That’s not to say the grassroots work stops; for any of you still working on getting your councils, trade unions and universities to endorse the treaty: this work continues to be vital, as is generally spreading

the word about the urgent need for a global fossil fuel phaseout. Moreover, it helps us apply maximum pressure on governments in the UK and globally to make sure April’s conference moves us closer to a truly just transition.

At the same time, we’ll be directing an increasing amount of our attention towards campaigning for other necessary conditions for a global just transition. This will include putting even more effort towards challenging ISDS, which many fossil fuel giants use as a weapon to block the transition we know is so desperately needed. We’ll also continue fighting for justice for global south countries and communities amid the increasing neocolonial scramble for critical minerals.

Take action to Stop Rosebank

Although the government confirmed it would ban new exploration for oil and gas in the North Sea at the end of last year, this does not include Rosebank. Exploration is the process that confirms there is oil and gas available to drill for; this happened around the proposed Rosebank site some time ago. The government asked the public for our views on Rosebank at the end of

Put Saturday 28 March in your diary, for what promises to be a huge mobilisation against the far right – the progressive response to Farage and Reform.

Global Justice Now and allies will be organising an internationalist bloc, to stand up against facsism everywhere: watch this space for more info.

Time, route and assembly point are yet to be announced but we will keep you posted.

last year and could make its final decision any day now.

Head of movement building James O’Nions at COP30 in Belém, joining the big climate justice demo.

Rosebank would be a climate disaster, but you can help to stop it. Check out the Stop Rosebank website, which outlines some actions we can all take to make sure plans for this climatewrecking oilfield are quite literally dead in the water: stopcambo.org.uk/act.

Key resources

Make Them Pay Two-page A4 campaign breifing (NEW Sep 2025)

Make Them Pay A5 leaflet (NEW Sep 2025)

The Fossil Fuel Treaty Six-page briefing (Jan 2024)

Find plenty more climate materials at globaljustice.org.uk/resources and contact us to order physical copies

Local groups news

Global Justice York marked COP30 with an action at the Hiscox building in the city, highlighting the role of insurance continuing to support coal, gas and oil exploration. Later they joined with XR and Friends of the Earth and hosted stalls in the city centre. They joined the Leeds Make Them Pay day of action in November and held an evening of culture and solidarity on the winter solstice.

Global Justice Nottingham also teamed up with XR and Friends of the Earth to hold stalls as part of the COP30 day of action. They’re currently building up to a pair of online screenings of the Two Worlds films in February.

Global Justice Cambridge had a positive meeting with Pippa Heylings MP (Lib Dem lead on Energy Security and Net Zero) highlighting ISDS and the Fossil Fuel Treaty. They also did their annual carol singing fundraising.

Global Justice Leicester held a stall at Leicester University, are collaborating with Friends of the Earth Leicester in their Planet not Profit campaign and received a response from a local Tory MP expressing some understanding for concerns over Geoffrey Cox’s participation in an ISDS case against the UK.

Global Justice Macclesfield continue to hold a monthly silent vigil for Gaza and will follow up all that work with a public meeting on the UK’s economics ties to Israel. They were on the Manchester Make Them Pay march and have an MP lobby meeting lined up for February.

Global Justice Bradford held their AGM with a talk from Anna Dixon MP for Shipley, who agreed to write to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund encouraging divestment from fossil fuels. In December, the group’s weekly vigil outside the pension fund’s offices quietly chalked up its fourth anniversary.

Photos, from top: Global Justice York’s action targeting Hiscox insurance; York activists on a rainy Make Them Pay demo in Leeds; Global Justice Bradford’s mock trial they held on the fourth anniversary of their vigil.

Event emails

If you’re organising a public meeting, protest or action, we’re happy to help promote it by emailing people in your local area.

1. Make sure you give us plenty of notice

2. Write what you want the email to say

3. Share any leaflets, posters or graphics you’ve made

4. Send it to guy.taylor@globaljustice.org. uk at least two weeks before the event

We’ll do what we can to help your events meet with success!

Youth

After freshers season many local youth groups held informal meet-ups, useful for engaging new people. Some of these from Reading, Oxford and London went on to join a Global Justice Youth bloc at the Palestine march in early October.

Also in October youth activists attended politics and culture festival The World Transformed in Manchester. They enjoyed the sessions, and it was a fantastic opportunity to connect with each other and the wider movement.

London Global Justice Youth organised a creative protest highlighting the Cumbria coal mine ISDS case and the role of Geoffrey Cox MP, at the same time that activists in his constituency organised a protest there.

On the fossil fuel treaty...

• Global Justice Youth Brighton active writing to the Vice-Chancellor and holding a campus stall that collected around 200 signatures. They received a response from the Vice-Chancellor and are now planning their next steps.

• Global Justice Youth Manchester adapted their treaty strategy following limited engagement from the Manchester Climate Change Partnership and are now focusing on securing endorsements from faith groups across the city. They also continue to run their film club and in November showed How to Blow up a Pipeline by director Daniel Goldhaber.

• Global Justice Stirling are getting closer to university endorsement. The proposal has now reached the stage where it requires a decision from the university court. The group is currently gathering further information which the university has asked them to provide.

• And in York, after a talk delivered by one our youth network staff, the Green Party university group has taken up campaigning on the treaty too.

Preparations for We Rise in Leeds are well underway, with people planning to travel from across the country. It’s shaping up to be an inspiring day of political education, connection and organising – join us on Saturday 21 February.

Elections for the Youth National Committee will take place at We Rise. Anyone interested in standing can put themselves forward by completing a short form which you can get by emailing activism@globaljustice.org.uk.