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.
While 2021 has not yet been the year we were hoping for, there is one bright spot: European courts are beginning to hold parent companies liable for human rights abuses committed outside the home country. In January 2021, the Hague Court of Appeal found Royal Dutch Shell’s (Shell) Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), liable for oil spills that occurred in the Niger Delta, an oil-rich region in Nigeria.
With Valentine’s Day upon us, we know that chocolate sales will increase. Hearts of chocolate wrapped in red will find their way into peoples’ homes, along with truffles and fancy bars. But as we celebrate yet another chocolate-focused holiday, it’s important to remember how chocolate is produced and who is making and selling it.
This post explores the viability of using the FCA in conjunction with the TVPRA to hold perpetrators of forced labor and human trafficking accountable.
Imagine that a company had a contract to provide food to US military personnel based in a foreign country. The company employed workers from a third country. However, the company held onto the workers’ passports, did not allow them to leave the facilities, and did not pay them for the full hours that they worked.
On Monday, January 27, 2020, twenty-four men, women, and children sued the Central Romana Corporation and its parent company, the Fanjul Corporation, in U.S. district court for the companies’ forcible eviction of their homes in the Dominican Republic in January 2016.
It’s Nearly Impossible To Buy Chocolate You Can Feel Good About
A lot of you have been asking for our recommendations on what chocolate to buy this Halloween, given the fact that forced labor and environmental abuse are so rampant in the cocoa sector. We wish we had better news.
The sad and hard truth is that there is very little chocolate that is truly sourced ethically (and don’t get me started on the labor and environmental issues related to sugar and palm oil production, both key ingredients in Halloween candy).
This Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we are reflecting on the steadfast nonviolent struggle of the indigenous Ogoni people in Nigeria and the human rights and environmental abuse they have suffered at the hands of the Nigerian government and Shell (Royal Dutch Shell’s subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC)).
