Hi John,
In 2025, the world has felt dangerously close to breaking point. Across the globe, wars rage on while the accelerating climate crisis has unleashed record heatwaves, fires and floods. Yet governments remain frozen, more often than not by corporate interests.
Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States has poured fuel on the fire. Trade wars are escalating. Climate agreements are being torn up. Far-right movements across Europe have been strengthened. The global economy is, more aggressively and rapidly than ever, being rigged for the rich and powerful.
But if this year has shown us anything, it’s that people are fighting back. From the millions who have marched to stop the genocide in Gaza, to the growing global movement demanding an end to destructive fossil fuels, people are refusing to accept a world built on inequality, greed and destruction.
As a supporter of Global Justice Now, you’ve played an important role in this fightback. Below you can read more about each of our campaigns; the progress we’ve made together, the national and international alliances we’ve formed and the movements we continue to build.
But we’re only as strong as our members. We rely on the support of people like you to power our work.
So, if you are in a position to do so, please consider joining us with a monthly donation of just £3, and help make sure we continue our hard-hitting campaigning work for the long-term.
Every time we challenge the system, we move one step closer to a more democratic and just world. That’s what Global Justice Now exists to do. And in a year when cynicism and fear have been easy choices, our movement has chosen courage and resilience.
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Trade: The backdrop to global justice
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This year we’ve built on our landmark victory of 2024, when the UK agreed to withdraw from the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The ECT, like many other treaties, contains a ‘corporate court’ mechanism (also known as ISDS) that allows corporations to sue governments for any policy they allege might hurt their profits. It’s a system that blocks climate action, drains public money, and favours corporate profit over people and the planet.
As part of our continued work to challenge the corporate courts system, we have strengthened our relationships with allies in Colombia and beyond, working closely with activists and decision-makers to push for the termination of the UK-Colombia investment treaty. This work has already contributed to a major step forward: the Colombian government publicly committed to end its ISDS treaties.
In just the last decade, Colombia has faced 25 corporate courts claims, including four brought by UK investors under the UK-Colombia treaty, making this commitment a significant breakthrough for climate justice and for communities across the globe resisting corporate power.
But despite these major steps forward, we have always known it isn’t enough to fight cases one by one. These cases are not random. They are symptoms of a system deliberately rigged in favour of big business and billionaires.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Trump-style trade politics. Trump is using tariffs to bully countries around the world into dropping taxes and regulation – particularly on US Big Tech. That’s why, this year, we increased our campaigning efforts to stop a US-UK trade deal. And in September, as part of the Stop Trump Coalition, we brought tens of thousands onto the streets of London in defiance of the US president’s authoritarian and big business agenda.
The danger of the corporate-first trade approach is no longer an abstract threat – even here in the UK. For years we’ve warned the government that unless the corporate courts system is dismantled, they will be in the firing line. And this year, that risk materialised: in August, the UK was sued over the quashed Cumbria coal mine. By early November a second ISDS case had been filed against the UK by a billionaire Russian oligarch. We pushed these cases into national headlines, and re-energised MPs and activists around the threat of ISDS to our own country’s climate action.
But we need a global movement working across borders against corporate courts. The year culminated in us organising an event on ISDS at the UN climate change conference (COP30) – the first time corporate courts have been brought into the COP in this way – and shared the stage with a Colombian minister. This marked the start of a new initiative launched with international allies to build a coalition of governments committed to withdrawing from the corporate courts regime.
Looking ahead, next year we will continue to accelerate the fight against the corporate-first trade logic. With the UK now experiencing firsthand the danger we’ve been warning about for years, we will seize this moment to push the government to take a firm stand against ISDS and work with fellow governments to dismantle it once and for all. At the same time, we will take our existing campaign into its next phase to halt Trump’s Big Tech-pleasing US-UK trade deal and push for global digital sovereignty.
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Westminster banner-drop by our London youth group in May, demanding an end to climate-wrecking corporate courts
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Climate: Paving the way for a (just) future
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Climate action appears to be slipping down the agendas of countries in the global north, many kowtowing to Trump’s total reversal of any action in the US. But with the world past 1.5 degrees of heating, we need climate action now.
In 2025, we worked hard for governments and decision-makers to implement a just plan for a transition away from oil, coal, and gas. We worked with allies to push for an international Fossil Fuel Treaty, and we continued our campaign to make sure Western demand for critical minerals needed for the transition to renewable energy doesn’t come at the expense of global south communities.
At COP30 in November, the climate justice movement made history. Governments agreed on the need for a just transition, with the strongest language on human, labour and indigenous rights ever. And while there is much further to go – the agreement on climate finance was far too weak, for example – we at least have a basis for a negotiation on the economic transformation needed to halt climate change.
What’s more, our focus on the Fossil Fuel Treaty paid off. With COP deadlocked over the need to end the fossil fuel age, a critical mass of countries decided they needed an alternative vehicle to make that happen. Colombia, backed by the Netherlands, will host the first Fossil Fuel Treaty summit at the end of April. Thanks to the work of campaigners around the world, we are closer to forming a new way of ending our dependence on fossil fuel corporations and petro states.
The COP success was followed by another major win for the climate justice movement just weeks later. Working in solidarity with activists in Mozambique, we successfully overturned £1 billion of UK funding pledged by Liz Truss for a massive gas export plant in Mozambique, a project that has already fuelled conflict and serious human rights abuses.
Finally, we built a UK-wide coalition called Make Them Pay, challenging the main perpetrators of climate destruction and making sure we win the argument on climate action with ordinary people in our own country. Our Make Them Pay mobilisation in September was a major highlight of the year. Thousands of us marched through London and together we sent a clear message: we must tax the super-rich, protect workers and make polluters pay for the damage they are causing.
In 2026, we will continue our work for a just transition; strengthening national and international coalitions by building wider support among the public.
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Nick Dearden and fellow panelists take the stage at COP30 in Brazil to challenge climate injustice and reshape global trade
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Justice for Palestine: Holding governments and corporations to account
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In late 2023 we knew we couldn’t stand by as Israel’s campaign of collective punishment in Gaza escalated, especially as the UK government was continuing to send weapons fuelling the killing.
This year we ramped up our demands for the UK government to apply real economic pressure on Israel, calling for it to suspend the current UK-Israel trade deal, scrap plans for a future deeper trade agreement, and sanction companies involved in the genocide.
Our campaigning helped create impact. In May, the UK suspended trade talks with Israel, the first time it has suspended such talks over human rights abuses. This was just a first step but it’s an important precedent we’re determined to build on. And in September, the Scottish government announced its support for sanctions and called on the UK to ban imports from illegal settlements.
Despite the supposed ceasefire agreement now in place in Gaza, serious human rights violations and war crimes are still taking place. And even if this Trump-imposed deal holds, this is just the starting point in the struggle for justice for Palestinians. Together with our supporters and allies we’ll continue to support that fight and hold governments and corporations to account.
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Marching to demand an end to the UK government’s arm sales to Israel in June.
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We can win and we do win. I hope that this look back over the last twelve months speaks to that. Without movements like ours, victories for justice simply wouldn’t happen. So, I want to say thank you. This year, together, we’ve made the world a little more hopeful.
Wishing you a very restful break and I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of our collective campaigning work in 2026.
Best wishes,
Nick Dearden, Director, and the rest of the team at Global Justice Now
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