Joan Russow - International and Domestic Peace Activism

International and Domestic Peace Activism

Russow developed a "Common Security Index" which was submitted to the Senate Committee on the Anti-Terrorism Act on October 17, 2005. To further common security, the member states of the United Nations have made commitments to work toward the following goals:

• to enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment, and ensure the right to development and social justice;
• to promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including labour rights, civil and political rights, social and cultural rights: the right to food, the right to housing, the right to safe drinking water and sewage, the right to education and right to a universally accessible not for profit health care system;
• to ensure the preservation and protection of the environment, the respect for the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose, the reduction of the ecological footprint and to move away from the current model of unsustainable and overconsumptive development;
• to achieve a state of peace and disarmament through reallocation of military expenses; and
• to create a global structure that respects the rule of law and the International Court of Justice.

Recently Russow has been speaking out about the increased militarism in Canada, focusing on the increased military budget; the increased belligerence in the military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan; the increased military exercises involving US nuclear powered vessels and nuclear arms capable vessels and aircraft and using live ammunition; the increased military recruitment ads on television and bus shelters, in "Navy days" with booths, and in schools; the increased mining and production of uranium, including the contribution to US and NATO weapon systems; and the increased military flights overhead and participation in community events and parades.

In March 2007, Russow lobbied state delegations in the UN General Assembly to invoke Article 22 of the Charter of the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to try the Bush regime. On March 8, 2007, the petition, in the six official languages, was submitted to the office of the President of the UN General Assembly.

In 2008, Russow was involved in a film project related to Co-operatives titled Counterpoint to Corporatism.

For the 2009 Conference on Climate change in Copenhagen, she submitted a document co-written with Rickard Levicki of England to the state negotiators.