Corporate Human Rights Violators

International human rights organisation, Global Exchange have named the multinational corporatations most noted for human rights violations in 2005.

"Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders."

It is a sorry list of 14 big corporates, including
- Caterpillar
- Chevron
- Coca-Cola
- Dow Chemical
- Dyancorp/CSC (private security contractor)
- Ford Motor Company
- Kellog Brown and Root (subsidiary of Halliburton)
- Lockeed Martin
- Monsanto
- Nestle USA
- Phillip Morris USA/Altria Group Inc.
- Pfizer (drug company)
- Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (SLDE) (French water mulitnational)
- Wal-Mart

The Global Exchange report includes a writeup detailing the human right abuses committed by each money hungry corporate, together with some helpful links to other watchdog organisations with a special interest in each company (eg. Coke Watch).

Several of these corporates are being sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that allows citizens of any nationality to sue in US federal courts for violations of international rights or treaties.

"When corporations act like criminals, we have the right and the power to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike to the accords they have signed. Around the world, in Venezuela, Argentina, India, and right here in the United States —citizens are stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to international law."

With the Bush Administration demonstrating nothing but absoulte contempt for international law with its invasion of Iraq in 2003, it ought to be no surprise there are so many US based corporations on the Global Exchange List.

DynCorp, Kellog Brown and Root and Lockeed Martin are all eager Iraq war profiteers, keen to help Bush suck the oil money out of Iraq by exporting the profits back to the States. These three corporates rogues deserve a post of their own.

Some other lowlights,
Caterpillar has refused to end their corporate participation in house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military, supplying equipment that kills Palestinian civilians and peace activists.

Chevron: In Nigeria, this large petrochemical company "has collaborated with the Nigerian police and military, who have opened fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta". Watching BBC World last night I caught an advertisement from Chevron aiming to cast doubt at the potential of wind power - the message appeared to have a remarkable similarity to the line promoted by our very own Contact Energy in their the so-called 'Positive Energy' campaign last year!

Coca-Cola Company: "...leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing. In Turkey, 14 Coca-Cola truck drivers and their families were beaten severely by Turkish police hired by the company, while protesting a layoff of 1,000 workers from a local bottling plant in 2005."

Dow Chemical is involved in human rights abuses worldwide: "environmental destruction, water and ground contamination, health violations, chemical poisoning, and chemical warfare.". In their hometown of Midland, Michigan, Dow has been "producing chlorinated chemicals and burning and burying its waste including chemicals that make up Agent Orange. In New Plymouth, New Zealand, 500,000 gallons of Agent Orange were produced and thousands of tons of dioxin-laced waste was dumped in agricultural fields."

Ford Motor Company. "Every year since 1999, the US Environmental Protection Agency has ranked Ford cars, trucks and SUVs as having the worst overall fuel economy of any American automaker. Ford's current car and truck fleet has a lower average fuel efficiency than the original Ford Model-T...Amazingly, despite the company's recent greenwashing PR campaign, its record has actually worsened. According to Ford's own sustainability report, between 2003 and 2004, the company's US fleet-wide fuel economy decreased and its CO2 emissions went up".

Monsanto, more widely known as the largest producer of genetically modified seeds on the planet, are not as well known for their use of child labour. They should be. "In India, an estimated 12,375 children work in cottonseed production for farmers paid by Indian and multinational seed companies, including Monsanto. A number of children have died or became seriously ill due to exposure to pesticides."

Nestle: Earlier this year "the International Labor Rights Fund and a Birmingham law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé and several of its suppliers on behalf of former child slaves...In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each."

Pfizer: One of the largest and most profitable pharmaceutical companies in the world (Revenues of $52.5 billion in 2004). Produces Viagra, Zoloft and many HIV/AIDS related drugs (Rescriptor, Viracept and Diflucan/fluconazole). "Like other drug companies, they sell these drugs at prices poor people cannot afford and aggressively fight efforts to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market....Pfizer and other drug companies have refused to grant generic licenses for HIV/AIDS drugs to countries like Brazil, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic, where patients are forced to pay $20 per weekly pill for drugs like fluconazole, though the average national wage is only $120 per month....To ensure its profits, Pfizer invests heavily in US campaign contributions. Though it can't seem to afford to offer life-saving drugs at affordable prices, it was able to scrounge up $544,900 for mostly Republican candidates in election cycle 2006 (still in progress) and $1,630,556 in the 2004 election cycle."

The Bush Administration's complete contempt for democracy in Iraq

In the June 27 edition of Focus on Trade, Herbert Docena compiles the complete story on how America have implemented their neo-liberal economic designs on Iraq.

'Shock and Awe Therapy: How the US is attempting to control Iraq's oil and try open its economy" is a very impressive piece of work and while long, is well worth reading. My April 2004 article 'Hijacking of a Nation' covered similar ground - its nice to see someone else reaching similar conclusions, as well as providing some damming quotes and references :)

Even before the invasion Docena quotes documents to show that the US had "sweeping plans to remake Iraq's economy in the US image". During the bombing BP engineers were embedded with the soldiers to locate and secure the oil wells. In May 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announced the Bush administration would be installing a regime heading by personnel who "favor market systems" and "encourage moves to privatize state-owned enterprises"

The US hand the contract for "transforming" Iraq's economy to US multinational Bearing Point. The contract states "The new government will seek to open up its trade and investment linkages and put in place the institutions promoting democracy, free enterprise and reliance on a market-driven private sector as the engine of economic recovery and growth.". Docena contrasts this 'systematic plan' with the complete lack of any planning for post-war humanitarian, rehabilitation and relief operations.

US Viceroy Paul Bremer illegally changed the "existing laws in force" in Iraq, allowing foreign investors to buy up and take over Iraq's state owned enterprises and repatriate 100% of the profits and other assets at any time (Order 39). As Iam al-Khafaji, who worked with the US in the early states of he occupation but later left, attests, "Many radically new sweeping changes, for example the law on foreign investment, Iraqis were not allowed to review it. They not even given the chance to look at it before it was passed.". Other 'orders' allowed foreign banks into the country and reduced the top tax rate form 40% to a flat rate of 15%, doing away with the principle of progressive taxation.

All of these imposed 'law' changes are clear violations of international law. The Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, which the US has signed up to, outlaw such law changes under occupation. Even though these 'laws' were forced on the Iraqi people before they had a chance to have a say in an election, Bremer also took steps to ensure it would be difficult for an incoming elected government to change the 'Orders' put in place by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

From the earliest days of the occupation, the US searched for Iraqis whose interests converged with that of the US. The US needed Iraqi faces 'out front' to attempt to show they were not colonizers imposing their will on the Iraqi people (yeah right!), and these Iraqis needed the US because lacking constituency and legitimacy, they have no chance of surviving in power without US protection. "What Washington wanted was Iraqis who - while willing to dabble in occasional criticism of the administration - were at the final analysis beholden to it" Middle East Historian Dilip Hiro (Hiro's book on the history of Iraq is well worth reading)

The US also planted hundreds of "advisers" in key ministries and the bureaucracy - including dozens of organisations and agencies who specialise in designing neo-liberal policies. The US also created new commissions and institutions that, according to the Wall Street Journal "effectively take away virtually all the powers once held by several ministries". Paul Bremer appointed the chiefs of the commissions to 5 year terms, which will neatly ensure the US appointees can not be replaced by an elected government.

During the January 2005 elections, the US used its usual "democracy promotion" organs (National Endowment for Democracy, The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute(IRI)) to promote their preferred parties, mostly Allawi's and other parties inside the Iraqi Governing Council, who also dominated the interim government. A IRI survey found 55% of Iraqis did not see the interim government as representing their interests. Bremer and his cronies also made attempts to disallow "rejectionists" such as Moqtada Sadr from being candidates in the elections.

No international monitors were allowed to scrutinize the elections - so there was no way to verify if fraud took place - the world just had to trust the word of the US-installed Iraqi government.

My point at present is not whether Iraq adopts a free market capitalist or a socialised economy. Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, it should be entirely up to the Iraqi people to decide the type of economy they want and the laws that will govern it. Not only are the radical reforms imposed by the CPA in violation of international law, they have been imposed before the Iraqi people have had a chance to have a say in an election. Not only that, but it appears the US have gone to great lengths to ensure any 'elections' are anything but a fair fight.

The actions of the Bush Administration in Iraq demonstrate nothing by complete contempt for democracy.

Categories: Iraq, Antiwar, Politics, Neo-liberalism, Investment, International Law

Iraq opens oil reserves to Western companies

Just read a report on the NZ Herald Online 'Iraq opens oil reserves to Western companies'.

Opening up Iraq's natural resources to widespread foreign investment completes the neo-liberal agenda of the US and its former viceroy Paul Bremer. In September 2003 Bremer imposed Order 39, a 'law' that rescinded nearly all of Iraq's legal and constitutional restrictions on foreign investment and banking. This law allowed 100% foreign investment in Iraqi companies (and state assets) and 100% repatriation of profits to their offshore owners. The only sector to be excluded from this carte blanche neo-liberalism was 'natural resources' (i.e. oil). This law is clearly illegal under the Geneva and Hague conventions, as Iraq was under under military occupation when Bremer imposed the changes, and the provisions of Order 39 clearly breached Iraq's constitution of 1970, a constitution that is still valid under international law.

Oil was exempted from Order 39 because it was thought that domestic political opinion would not stand for it. That’s not to say these changes were in any way democratic, as Order 39 was imposed before elections. The US clearly thinks that Iraqis will be happier with US part ownership of oil infrastructure, if the policy is advocated by an Iraqi face. This is where the (unelected) interim government comes in.

In an interview in a Shell newsletter that is distributed to its Middle Eastern clients, [Oil Minister] Mr Ghadban added that Iraq would open its doors to the oil giants early next year.

"We would like to open a dialogue with international oil companies [IOCs]. We are now formulating our policies ... and we think there is room for IOCs in Iraq - in particular in the upstream because we need new investment."

"We believe that there is at least 2.5 to 3 million barrels per day of new oil production capacity that could, in the long term, be added to our production levels."

The 'problem' for such 'investment' is the 1970 constitution that provides that "natural resources" and the "basic means of production" are owned by "the People". Not even Bremer attempted to override the clear constitutional prohibition to foreign ownership of the oil. It would not surprise me if the latest comments by the 'Iraqi' Oil minister are part of a strategy to move public opinion in favour of privatisation. Expect the interim unelected 'government' to stitch up a deal with BP or Shell and then claim 'there is no alternative' to Iraqis accepting full or part US/UK profiteering from the oil. Then expect such clauses to be missing when a replacement constitution for Iraq is drawn up next year.

Luckily, global justice activists have time to fight this issue, as the western oil companies are hesitant about investing in Iraq while the violence continues.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry was forced to cancel a conference in April when most companies pulled out after a surge in violence in the country.
...
Today, neither BP nor Shell has any staff working there. Shell has one consultant in Iraq and it is monitoring developments from its Dubai office. A spokeswoman refused to say if it was planning to send employees to the country. But she added: "Iraq does offer opportunities. We are following developments and working with the Iraqi Minister of Oil.". A BP spokesman said that the company would only consider opportunities in Iraq when "there is a proper regime" in the country.

While it would be nice to think that BP regards the current Iraqi administration as illegitimate, it is more likely they are worried about the prospect of their 'investments' being renationalised by a future representative Iraqi government, on the grounds that privatisation under effective occupation is illegal (and they would be right!)

Also expect US relations with Saudi Arabia to cool further as more barrels of oil roll out of Iraq. Saudi Arabia was one of the most significant beneficiaries of the 1991 Gulf War, as it was able to increase its production as Iraq's oil infrastructure was bombed. Saudi Arabia picked up the slack, and Iraq will soon want and be able to take the 'slack' back.