Global Witness
“We know that companies have captured governments around the world through campaign financing and excessive lobbying to water down regulations designed to protect people and planet. We know that Big Oil has been profiting from climate wrecking fossil fuels while pumping out misinformation to skew the science. And we know that companies are complicit in the killing and silencing of land and environmental defenders. This must stop.”
Global Witness was founded in 1993 as a research and campaigning organization to expose “environmental and human rights abuses in the oil, gas, mining, and timber sectors, and [track] ill-gotten money and influence through the global financial and political system. Today, we continue to focus on abusive actors, misuse of power and financial flows, but have turned our focus on some of the most urgent issues facing humanity: the climate emergency and attacks on civic space.”
The organization’s investigations are well-documented, including through publication allies with independent media organizations such as The Guardian. “Global Witness investigations are known for their meticulous attention to detail and we use an ever-evolving variety of techniques including undercover filming and scraping and analysing open source and leaked data sets. For instance, in 2020 we conducted our most ambitious data-driven investigation to date, uncovering the illegal deforestation linked to Brazil’s biggest beef companies. Our communications, events and partnerships bring issues to the attention of audiences around the world and onto the political agenda. Meanwhile, through our advocacy we successfully shape and secure laws, sanctions and changes in business practice to ensure transition to a just and sustainable future.”
While Global Witness does not refer to corporate or State capture, its work on issues from curbing illicit financial flows, to ending corporate complicity in environmental and human rights abuses, to ending corporate corruption does address the modes and effects of corporate capture.
An example of research conducted by Global Witness is: “Capture on the Nile: South Sudan’s state-owned oil company, Nilepet, has been captured by the country’s predatory elite and security services.”