In 1854, Professor Silliman of the Chemistry Department of Yale University was commissioned by a small group of American venture capitalists to examine the properties of a curious black substance that was bubbling out of the ground in western Pennsylvania. The substance, of course, was oil, referred to at the time as “rock oil,” and Professor Silliman’s final report on the usefulness of oil is widely regarded as a foundation of the modern petroleum industry, having encouraged investors toward the pursuit of large-scale oil development. Earlier this month, over 150 years later, three ERI staff traveled to Yale Law School to likewise examine today’s “properties” of natural resources.

ERI Program Coordinator Naing Htoo, ERI Project Coordinator Matthew F. Smith, and ERI Litigation Coordinator Rick Herz participated in the inaugural Symposium on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries at Yale Law School, hosted by the Editors of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal (YHRDLJ). The Symposium brought together scholars, businesspeople, students, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss topics related to CSR in the extractive industries.

ERI would like to thank the Editors of the YHRDLJ for their important contribution to the field of CSR in the extractive industries, and for their generous support to ERI.

Smith and Htoo presented a paper about ongoing human rights impacts of natural gas development in Burma, entitled “Energy Security: Security for Whom?” The presentation reported on the ongoing human rights abuses connected to the Yadana natural gas project in Burma, which is developed by Chevron Corporation (U.S.A.), Total (France), PTTEP (Thailand), and the military regime in Burma. The abuses discussed included the ongoing prevalence of forced labor in the area of the Yadana pipeline in Burma, and the direct links between the companies and the human rights abuses.

The presentation also outlined the serious threat of future human rights abuses connected to the Shwe natural gas project in Burma, which is being actively opposed by the Shwe Gas Movement due in part to the potential human rights impacts. The project is being developed by Daewoo International and Korean and Indian state-owned oil and gas corporations, and potentially involves construction of an overland pipeline that will be approximately 40 times longer than the Yadana pipeline. The paper is due to be published in the upcoming Volume XI of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal.

In 1854, Professor Silliman of the Chemistry Department of Yale University was commissioned by a small group of American venture capitalists to examine the properties of a curious black substance that was bubbling out of the ground in western Pennsylvania. The substance, of course, was oil, referred to at the time as “rock oil,” and Professor Silliman’s final report on the usefulness of oil is widely regarded as a foundation of the modern petroleum industry, having encouraged investors toward the pursuit of large-scale oil development. Earlier this month, over 150 years later, three ERI staff traveled to Yale Law School to likewise examine today’s “properties” of natural resources.

ERI Program Coordinator Naing Htoo, ERI Project Coordinator Matthew F. Smith, and ERI Litigation Coordinator Rick Herz participated in the inaugural Symposium on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries at Yale Law School, hosted by the Editors of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal (YHRDLJ). The Symposium brought together scholars, businesspeople, students, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss topics related to CSR in the extractive industries.

ERI would like to thank the Editors of the YHRDLJ for their important contribution to the field of CSR
in the extractive industries, and for their generous support to ERI.

ERI Litigation Coordinator Rick Herz spoke on a panel concerned with modes of corporate responsibility in the extractive industry, focusing on the importance of maintaining corporate liability for abetting human rights abuses committed abroad. Herz’s paper, “The Liberalizing Effects of Tort: How Corporate Complicity Liability Under the Alien Tort Statute Advances Constructive Engagement,” argues that corporate complicity liability under the Alien Tort Statute serves to promote democracy and human rights abroad, contrary to the Bush Administration’s view that such liability limits the ability of the U.S. to practice “constructive engagement” with repressive regimes. Herz argues that corporate liability for abetting abuses creates incentives for companies to actually practice “constructive engagement” the way it is intended. That is, to the extent potential liability induces corporations to refuse to be complicit in abuses and to explain to their government partners that they can be sued before a neutral court if they are complicit, corporations will engage in exactly the dialogue with repressive regimes that supporters of engagement assert facilitates democratization. The paper will appear in Vol. 21, Issue 2, of the Harvard Human Rights Journal (2008).