«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 readingThe time has come for the Human Rights Council to adopt binding norms to end the impunity of transnational corporations! Countries and peoples of the Global South are the main victims of the asymmetry in the international system. We cannot rely on self-regulation and voluntary codes of conduct to discipline the most powerful actors in the global economy today.
Continue readingA formal complaint was submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against Chevron's CEO by the victims of the activities of this transnational corporation in Ecuador. In 26 years of oil drilling in the Amazon region of Ecuador, Chevron (formerly Texaco) polluted more than 450,000 hectares of one of the planet's richest […]
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Historic: the Human Rights Council decides to launch negotiations on new binding international norms concerning the human rights responsibilities of TNCs!
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