The recent globalization of economies and corporations is providing millions of people with a better standard of living through higher wages, increased training and education, and contact with the outside world.

Some less-discussed byproducts of these new opportunities are the human rights violations that have been created or sustained since many nations began opening their markets and borders

The "World Report 2001," the 11th annual report on the condition of human rights worldwide released by the nonprofit Human Rights Watch group, raises new questions beyond the usual concerns of fair wages and child labor.

These questions include the scope of a private company’s responsibilities when a government it partners with uses revenues to wage war, or if that government employs abusive security forces to protect the company's facilities, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reports.

The 2001 report, which provides an overview of human rights issues in 70 countries, argues that the new Internet- and technology-based economic world is creating a commerce system that leaves little or no room for social values or human rights, the Mercury News reports.

The report did provide some positive assurances that serious human rights violators are being prosecuted now more than ever around the world; however, it singled out the U.S. for human rights abuses within its criminal justice system.

It also included denouncements of Russia for not applying the rule of law to its troops in the breakaway province of Chechnya, Israel for the use of excessive force against Palestinians, Indonesia for failing to control militias in West Timor, and the world for responding too slowly to crises in Angola, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the newspaper reports.

Human Rights Watch also is calling for the creation of a new organization to monitor and enforce worker-rights standards around the globe. The nonprofit group states that a new, independent group is needed because the U.S. has little faith in United Nations programs and the World Trade Organization doesn't have the authority to police nations on these issues.

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