From the diaries by susanhbu. Last night, Nightline presented a documentary on human rights violations in Burma. “The Giant Slayers” is the story of a young lawyer, Katie Redford, and a Burmese human rights activist, Ka Hsaw Wa, who fell in love but waited to get married until they filed suit against UNOCAL on behalf of the people in Burma who had suffered at the hands of demonstrable collusion between the transnational corporation and the Burmese military. They formed a group, Earth Rights International, and filed Doe v. Unocal. The suit was based on an arcane 18th century law that would hold US companies accountable for human rights violations committed overseas. While one wrote a law school paper on the arcane law, the other gathered evidence against UNOCAL.
Below, the Bolton connection:
They thought the law suit would take only a couple of years but it took 10. During those years they built a family, (they have two children, a boy and a girl) and a non-profit organization. Just before the settlement in March 2005, UNOCO was bought by Chevron Texaco and many think there is a direct connection between the sale and the settlement. —
Since the settlement, the USA (with Australia, and South Africa) voted against this April 20, 2005 UN resolution
The full resolution is here.
You might be interested to know why the US voted against the resolution. This is the USA Explanation of Position on UN Resolution E/CN.4/2005/L.87:
Transnational Corporations, April 20, 2005
The United States has the strongest business regulatory environment in the world. U.S. corporations, whether working at home or abroad, are held to the highest standards of ethical behavior and respect for human rights. Corporations have an absolute and unambiguous responsibility to obey the law, and in so doing to honor the human rights of all individuals with whom they have contact.
[…]
We have been down this path many times in the UN, and it is both sad and undeniable that the anti-business agenda pursued by many in this organization over the years has held back the economic and social advancement of developing countries.[…]
The settlement, the UN resolution and the US explanation lead me to understand why the White House is insisting on John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN. I imagine the huddle of Karl Rove, and the three oil magnates, Bush, Cheney and Condi. They are saying “This kind of lawsuit must never happen again! We will get our man in the UN to prevent it.” But the die is cast, the precedent set for the future regarding transnationals and how they treat people, thanks to this wonderful couple.
Also in The Nation this week, a startling connection between the ChevronTexaco buyout of Unocal and a Burma human rights lawsuit that turned out to be more than a mere nuisance to the targeted corporation. Just two weeks before the Unocal Corporation was bought out, “Unocal had agreed to pay to settle a long-running lawsuit charging the oil company with assisting and encouraging the torture, murder and rape of Burmese villagers by government soldiers so that Unocal could build a gas pipeline.” The Burmese villagers won “significant monetary compensation” and money for social development programs benefiting people who live in parts of Burma impacted by the Unocal pipeline. The scope of the confidential settlement must have been well over $60 million, judging by the company’s revealing insurance-suit scramble to cover its costs. The crystal clear precedent set in this case is of revolutionary importance – as one of the case’s human rights lawyers told Daphne Eviatar, “The standard disclaimers that they’ve used: that it wasn’t our president physically torturing the villagers who worked on the pipeline, it was the government, our joint venture partner, doing this–the Unocal case established that they can’t say that anymore.”
And way back when, Cheney had this to say regarding the fact that sanctions against Burma
for its human rights violations were not being broken by Halliburton.
The U.S. Justice Department recently filed an “amicus” (friend of the court) brief in a Ninth Circuit case involving the energy company UNOCAL and a group of Burmese people who say they were forced to work as slaves on a UNOCAL pipeline project. The Justice Department brief took issue with the very use of ATCA to file human rights cases.
Some international business groups are openly campaigning against ATCA. They are asking Congress to repeal or amend the law so that companies cannot be sued. link
I’d like to see a more detailed history of this. Maybe Jerome has information about the project.
Jerome usually provides good contextual ideas to help us understand the various oil and gas projects going on around the world.
As for Burma’s use of slave labor and other atrocities, are there any good resources for learning about this?
I’ll search Democracy Now and report back . They’ve done a lot.
I watched Nightline last night too, and it was a wonderful story. (And those two have two of the cutest kids you’ll ever see.) I wish they’d also shown the first report they did five years ago. And I also wish that Nightline — like Frontline — put up the full video of its programs. The Nightline site kind of sucks for background info, etc. on their stories. Oh well, Nightline will disappear by the end of the year, sigh.
Unocal Settles Landmark Human Rights Case with Burmese Villagers, December 16, 2004
— guest: Sandra Coliver, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability based in San Francisco
— Related documents:
Under Pressure from Corporations, Ashcroft Threatens to Overturn a 200 Year-Old Law Used to Fight Human Rights Abusers and War Criminals, March 9, 2004
Union Carbide and Anti-Burma Law, March 23, 2000
— and many more —
Nightline was very lite viewing. They didn’t mention that the US Justice department is fighting like hell to repeal the law. Frontline is in danger with the new swing to the right on PBS. Documentaries will have to be made independently and sent around the country in brown paper bags.
Nightline: You are right that it was a light treatment. But, gosh, at least they did it. And to think that there’ll be no more of that on late night networks. A couple months ago, I posted a story about Nightline’s coming demise and was saddened by the comments the story got. My point was that Nightline’s presence on the ABC lineup meant that a few more million people got exposed to these stories than otherwise would. Anyone who watched that show last night would have been charmed by the love story and thought a bit differently about Unocal.
Frontline is in danger too? Have you read that somewhere? If so, I’m very disturbed.
The indy news sources have such a tough go of it. I got a painful personal note from someone at INN World Report … that daily half-hour news show is aired on Free Speech TV and on community access stations around the U.S. They are barely making it financially. I wish I could think how to help them. I like their show very much.
If you follow what’s going on at PBS, for example Kenneth Tomlinson hated NOW and look what happened to it. How long do you think Frontline can last?
ReclaimtheMedia.org
has an article.
Common Dreams is following the debacle on PBS.
Just watching it I notice many right wing talking heads, Jeff Greenfield, Tucker Carlson, Fareed Zakaria.
Don’t despair Susan, you are on the wave of the new media.
The link in my comment above leads to a two page report in the Nation:
Early in April, the California-based Unocal Corporation announced it was being bought out by its neighbor, the oil giant ChevronTexaco. Splashed across the business pages, the news overshadowed another announcement, made much more quietly two weeks earlier: that Unocal had agreed to pay to settle a long-running lawsuit charging the oil company with assisting and encouraging the torture, murder and rape of Burmese villagers by government soldiers so that Unocal could build a gas pipeline. The timing of these two announcements is no coincidence, and it underscores just how seriously these legal cases are now being taken in corporate boardrooms. Once considered mere nuisances, lawsuits implicating corporations in international human rights abuses have become major obstacles to corporate profitability and prospects.
“Companies like Unocal have been claiming all along that these cases are not to be taken seriously, that they’re just brought by a bunch of activists for political reasons without legal grounds, and that no one’s had to pay for them and no one ever will,” says Katie Redford, a lawyer for EarthRights International, who helped put the case together in 1996 on behalf of one of two groups of Burmese refugees. (Most of the plaintiffs have fled the country and remained anonymous since the case was filed, to protect them from retaliation by the Burmese government; see also Eviatar, “Profits at Gunpoint,” June 30, 2003.) “Companies have been able to mislead themselves and the public that human rights concerns would not affect their bottom line. That’s just not the case anymore.” […]
The other link leads to AmericaRadioWorks Blog which has a long report.
All the recent controversy about globalization and the World Trade Organization spotlighted growing concern that U.S. corporations need to take more responsibility for how workers are treated in factories overseas. All heard about the flap over issues like wages and workplace safety in Nike shoe factories in Asia and Kathy Lee Gifford’s clothing factories in Central America. But now here’s a landmark legal case that goes way beyond that; human rights groups have sued the Unocal corporation. You used to know it as Union Oil of California. They charge that since the early 1990s, Unocal has joined hands with dictators in Myanmar to turn thousands of citizens there into virtual slaves. It’s a landmark case, not just because human rights groups charge that UNOCAL has engaged in slavery. This is the first time that anybody has sued an American corporation in an American court on the grounds that the company’s violating human rights in another country. National Public Radio’s Daniel Zwerdling traveled to the region and has this report. […]
The subject is so vital, I would love to see more from Jermome on the broader issue of Oil Companies in the world. Have you followed the story of Shell in Nigeria?
Jerome-in-Paris, that is.
Sybil, maybe you can tell others about how the “Does” who were the plaintiffs in the suit are having to hide in fear for their lives, and how they hope to spend the money they will receive.
I have not been able to find much information on the 11
John/Jane Does who were the plaintiffs other than the brief mention
in The Nation article. They have had to flee the country and go into hiding
to save their lives.
[Correction]
The article below reports that the settlement (from the Wall St. Journal)
was $30 million, not the $60 million estimate as mentioned in the diary.
Mizzima.com specializing in Burma related news.