This year, states will begin implementing a global minimum tax rate of fifteen percent on multinational corporations with more than €750 million (about $810 million) in revenues. If these tax reforms succeed in increasing tax revenues across the approximately 140 implementing countries as they intend, these additional funds could be used to advance the social and economic rights of their citizens, especially for the most vulnerable populations, including those whose rights have been abused by corporations historically. However, the coming tax reforms are still so riddled with gray areas regarding form and function that it is too early to call the initiative a victory in corporate accountability.
Durante los 365 días desde que se bloqueó la entrada de su azúcar a los Estados Unidos por trabajo forzoso, el Central Romana ha optado por implementar sólo cambios superficiales para los cañeros y utilizar estrategias políticas en un aparente intento de hacer desaparecer la WRO.
Over the 365 days since its sugar was blocked from entering the United States, Central Romana has chosen to implement only superficial changes for workers while pulling political strings in an apparent effort to make the import ban disappear.
Last month, The Guardian revealed that Canadian pipeline company Enbridge has paid Minnesota police more than two and a half million dollars for services including the surveillance and arrest of Water Protectors resisting the company’s construction of a new Line 3 pipeline. This post situates the Enbridge-police agreement in Minnesota and violent crackdown against Water Protectors at Line 3 within a disturbing global context rooted in colonialism.
In 2019, CAL partnered with EarthRights International to update their Guide to the Foreign Legal Assistance statute. Given that the US is an increasingly difficult jurisdiction for transnational human rights cases against companies, this tool provides an opportunity for workers and community members to access key evidence located in the US even where they may not have been able to bring suit there.
The largest garment industrial accident in Savar, Dhaka killed 1,134 garment labourers and injured approximately 2,500 garment labour. After the collapse in 2013, international pressure grew and two large groups of Brands/retailers formed unique transnational initiatives in order to address the safety problems of Bangladeshi garment labourers.
When I describe CAL’s work to other millennial lawyers, they often tell me “I’m just not that creative.” But these self-identified uncreatives spend their days solving complex problems in sophisticated, nuanced ways. Is this intelligence, but not creativity? What is creativity anyway, and are we born with it, or not?
In a classic 5-4 split, the Supreme Court ruled today that foreign corporations cannot be sued for egregious human rights violations under the Alien Tort Statute. Here is our fast-and-dirty take on the opinion. In short: the majority’s opinion appears to have more to do with market fundamentalism than the administration of justice, and sets a problematic precedent for victims’ access to remedy.
Background
In March 2017, I began working with CAL on a copyright license. Our intent was to create a license that could be used by anyone to condition the use of their copyrighted works on the user’s *contractually enforceable* promise to protect human rights and the environment across the supply chains in which the copyright is used. This is a three-part post is about the creation of the license, the discovery of some exciting new potential for intellectual property commons and economic activism, and the birth of a new folk hero of the commons named activistartmachine. You can shortcut to our software license here and our Creative Commons Plus license here.
This hour is well worth your time if you are interested in human rights law in the United States. If their conclusion about Jesner is correct, and corporate liability becomes more limited, we need to be ready with new strategies. That's what we're up to here at the Lab.
Nike boasts of empowering women, but its garment workers tell a different story. Can you imagine the irony of sowing Equality on a shirt for a brand which is complicit in the firing of pregnant women? Wage theft? Mass faintings? Union-busting? While Nike markets themselves as champions of women’s equality, the abuses behind their factory doors expose that the only thing they champion is their own bottom line.
On July 1st, 2017, CAL's co-founder Charity Ryerson was interviewed by Amy Guth for a segment on WGN Radio regarding the plight of children around the world. Charity talks with Amy about CAL’s recent work and the importance of maintaining the rights of children.
One of the reasons I find Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) so exciting is that it creates a space from which we can design and test interdisciplinary, praxis-driven experiments to stop corporate abuse. As we collectively struggle to properly diagnose the structural failures that have led to the current crisis of corporate impunity, I’m trying to work out whether or not it would be fair to understand corporate accountability in our justice system today as a club good, as opposed to a public good. If we can fairly characterize corporate accountability--holding corporations legally accountable for harms they’ve committed--as a club good, we can better expose the structural faults we collectively seek to repair.
Human rights and labor advocates often raise the possibility of using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 USC § 1962) (“RICO”) to sue companies who violate human rights overseas. At first glance, this seems like a great fit. The Act provides both civil and criminal liability for individuals and organizations, including corporations, engaging in a pattern of certain criminal acts (including murder, extortion, bribery and other crimes) that are often involved in human rights abuse cases. So why can’t foreign victims of torture, murder or crimes against humanity at the hands of U.S. companies operating abroad bring RICO suits for damages?
