WK 417 Investing in Strategy Building

Learn about the strategic use of national laws to build legal cases in many countries throughout the world to confront businesses violating human rights.

Presenter

Terry Collingsworth, International Labor Rights Fund, USA

• Read Terry Collingsworth’s presentation outline

This session examines the strategic use of national laws to give victims of human rights abuses by corporations more opportunities for redress. This can send a powerful message to both national and transnational corporations that they will be held responsible for violations facilitated by their business ventures, while at the same time raising awareness among the general public. The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) has successfully used the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) to bring legal cases against multinational corporations complicit in human rights abuses. Dating back to 1789 and created to provide legal relief for violations of the "law of nations," the ATCA is a U.S. federal statute allowing foreign nationals to bring civil actions against U.S. citizens and corporations. ILRF’s first ATCA case, for example, was brought against the energy company Unocal on behalf of Burmese refugees for the use of forced labor on a natural gas pipeline in Burma. If the refugees had complained in Burma, they might have faced imprisonment, torture or death, since it is against the law to provide information to foreigners about the government. The ATCA, however, allowed the Burmese to bring the case to the United States. For a case to be considered, there must be evidence that the corporation knowingly participated in or aided and abetted the rights violation; the ILRF is working to prove this. In addition to the case against Unocal, the ILRF has brought cases against Coca-Cola, Exxon-Mobil, Drummond and Del Monte. None of these cases has yet been concluded. The ATCA was the subject of a legal assault by the U.S. Attorney General’s office and the organized business community in the United States. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, held that the ATCA does permit suits for violations of the law of nations. The session will also examine the prospects for asserting universal jurisdiction in the courts of other nations to seek relief for violations of universally recognized human rights norms. While legal tactics have long been used to provide redress for human rights, the use of national laws within one’s own country as well as laws that may be accessible in the country where the business is headquartered has not been fully explored.