Dra. Vandana Shiva

PRESIDENT OF THE TRIBUNAL – QUITO 2014
JUDGE

Vandana Shiva Rights of Nature Tribunal judge

Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as “Gandhi of grain” for her activism associated with the anti-GMO movement.Shiva is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization, and a figure of the anti-globalisation movement. She has argued in favour of the wisdom of many traditional practices. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain’s Socialist Party’s think tank. She is also a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993, an honour known as an “Alternative Nobel Prize” Shiva also thought that the biological wealth of poorer countries was too often appropriated by global corporations that neither sought their hosts’ consent nor shared the profits. In her 1997 book, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, she charged that these practices were tantamount to biological theft. Shiva expounded upon her ideas on corporate trade agreements, the exponential decrease in the genetic diversity of crops, and patent law in Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (1999), Tomorrow’s Biodiversity (2000), and Patents: Myths and Reality (2001), respectively. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (2002) criticizes corporations for attempting to privatize water resources. Shiva continued to articulate the problems caused by corporate domination and to foster the development of realistic solutions in Globalization’s New Wars: Seed, Water, and Life Forms (2005) and Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (2005). Shiva also edited Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed (2007). 

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