Campaign success: Jersey votes for vulture fund law
We may have be working away trying to convince European leaders to protect lifesaving EU aid in their budget negotiations, but we couldn’t possibly let the news go unmarked that Jersey has voted to bring in the vulture funds law that ONE members having been pushing them to.
This is a great success for our movement. Think back to where we were only a few short months ago – vulture fund FG Hemisphere was using Jersey’s courts to try and collect $100m from the Democratic Republic of Congo for an old, much smaller debt.
Almost 50,000 ONE members signed a petition asking for Jersey to bring in in legislation to stop this ever happening again. After pressure from ONE, our friends at the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and finally a public consultation, Jersey’s Chief Minister, Ian Gorst, committed to bringing the law in. Then, after another push and against the odds, the DRC’s appeal to the UK Privy Council was successful, and the vulture fund defeated.
Now, the law is on its way.
Wow! This campaign shows just how important it is to take a stand. Had the 50,000 of you not signed the petition, had we not gone to Jersey to hand in this petition to the Chief Minister’s office, had we not all kept on pushing… then this may well not be the result we see today.
Thank you to everyone who supported this campaign. Jersey was by no means the last target for vulture funds, so our work continues, but this is a great step in the right direction.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
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