«Il n‘y a pas un monde développé et un monde sous-développé, mais un seul monde mal développé»
Transnational corporations (TNCs) have become major and powerful actors.
The activities of transnational corporations are a source of multiple human rights violations
In many cases, especially when victims are from the Global South, impunity prevails. TNCs are indeed able to evade national jurisdictions because of the unprecedented economic, financial and political power they command, their transnational character, their economic and legal flexibility and the complex structures they use to carry on their activities.
Since the late 90s, the CETIM is firmly committed to ending the impunity of transnational corporations and ensuring access to justice for the victims of their activities. The CETIM supports social movements, trade unions and organizations representing victims and affected communities from the Global South in their efforts to access the UN human rights protection mechanisms. And the CETIM is involved to their sides in the campaign for new binding international norms to end impunity, providing its support for their participation in the negotiations and the presentation of their proposals.
Access to justice for victims of TNCs
In 60 years of oil production in the Niger Delta, the local communities have known no rest. Shell has systematically violated human rights and destroyed the environment as well as the livelihoods of communities, but neither international campaigns nor national laws, courts and regulatory agencies have been able to end these practices.
Continue readingAnglo Gold Ashanti is trying to start mining activities in the ancestral territories of Afro-descendant communities in La Toma (Cauca) in Colombia. These communities oppose the project that threatens the environment and their livelihoods. They are victims of multiple human rights violations. The Constitutional Court has ruled in their favor, but the Colombian government is not implementing the ruling, quite the contrary.
Continue readingIn 2013, a series of dramatic accidents in Bangladeshi textile factories caused thousands of casualties, spurring worldwide protests.
In the wake of this uproar, a number of corporations and trade unions involved concluded the “Accord on Fire and Building in Bangladesh”. This deal has incidentally been publicized and celebrated as an example of corporate social responsibility. The agreement is largely based on the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (also known as the Ruggie principles), which are supposed to prevent human rights violations. However, this initiative turned out to be one more of countless deceits by transnational corporations. They burnish their image before the public, without genuinely taking responsibility for respecting human rights.
In July 2012, dozens of workers of the Manesar plant of the car company Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) – located in the State of Haryana in northern India – were dismissed and detained without charge because they were exercising their right to association and affiliation to a trade union of their choice. Indeed, workers’ rights and trade union rights, including the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the right to equal pay for equal work, are not respected by the management of MSIL. Following a riot, the police arrested over a hundred workers, who are to this day still in custody. Under the pretext of the violence and a fire caused by the riots, the management suppressed the trade union and dismissed over two thousand workers. It is vital, that the human rights situation and the behavior of the police in this affair be investigated by an independent inquiry.
Continue readingHUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 22nd Session March 2013 [Excerpt of the declaration] The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), the Europe – Third World Centre (CETIM), the American Association of Jurists and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) welcome the report of the International Fact-Finding Mission investigating the impact of the Israeli settlements on the […]
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