Links to wikipedia pages on each organization.

Protecting a culture
Cultural rights include a group’s ability to preserve its way of life, such as child rearing, continuation of language, and security of its economic base in the nation, which it is located. The related notion of indigenous intellectual property rights (IPR) has arisen in attempt to conserve each society’s culture base and essentially prevent ethnocide.

The cultural rights movement is important because much traditional cultural knowledge has commercial value, like ethno-medicine, cosmetics, cultivated plants, foods, folklore, arts, crafts, songs, dances, costumes, and rituals. Studying ancient or obsolete cultures may reveal evidence about the history of the human race and shed more light on our origin and successive cultural development. However, the study, sharing and commercialization of such cultural aspects can be hard to achieve without infringing upon the cultural rights of those who are still a part of that culture.

Adil Najam, a scholar of the subject at Boston University and now at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy has defined global governance simply as "the management of global processes in the absence of global government."2 Thomas G. Weiss, director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center (CUNY) and editor (2000-5) of the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, defines "global governance" as "collective efforts to identify, understand, or address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual states to solve."3

"Global governance" is not a normative term denoting good or bad practice. It is a descriptive term, referring to concrete cooperative problem-solving arrangements. They may be formal, taking the shape of laws or formally constituted institutions to manage collective affairs by a variety of actors (such as state authorities, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector entities, other civil society actors, and individuals). But these may also be informal (as in the case of practices or guidelines) or temporary units (as in the case of coalitions).4

Thus, global governance may be defined as "the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated.”

Proposed by the InterAction Council, 1 September 1997

Globalization of the world economy is matched by global problems, and global problems demand global solutions on the basis of ideas, values and norms respected by all cultures and societies. Recognition of the equal and inalienable rights of all the people requires a foundation of freedom, justice and peace - but this also demands that rights and responsibilities be given equal importance to establish an ethical base so that all men and women can live peacefully together and fulfil their potential. A better social order both nationally and internationally cannot be achieved by laws, prescriptions and conventions alone, but needs a global ethic. Human aspirations for progress can only be realised by agreed values and standards applying to all people and institutions at all times.

According to the WHO, each human being requires 20 litres of fresh water per day. Fresh water is a vital human resource, and is involved in many industries, including forestry, agriculture and mining. It can be dammed to create power in the form of hydroelectricity. Rivers often serve as the boundaries and demarcations between nations. Perhaps most importantly, fresh water is a fundamental requirement of all living organisms, Crops, livestock and Humanity included.

From country to country this specific figure varies, as is the case with westernised nations having ready access to decontaminating water for human consumption, and bringing it to every home. At the same time, nations across Latin America, parts of South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East are unable to obtain such facilities at the scales required, for various reasons, meaning the quantity of fresh water consumed per capita is reduced, leading to disease, starvation and death. The control of water resources is considered vital to the survival of a state.