Burma’s State Peace and Development Council’s Order No. 1/99 (March 1999), along with the Supplementary Order to Order No. 1/99 (October 2000), outlawed forced labor throughout the country.  Despite these orders, forced labor continues.  The villagers of Shan State and Tenasserim Division tell of their experiences in the accounts that follow.

More of the Same (English) (359.62 KB)

More of the Same (Japanese) (462.67 KB)

"When you speak another language, that is Burmese, you become Burman instead of Karen. When this happens you're already dead as a Karen person."

"When they are portering, many Shan don't understand what the soldiers are ordering them to do, and so they may make mistakes and get beaten and tortured by the soldiers."

On the eve of the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, EarthRights International released this report, which documents a widespread pattern of brutal discrimination against ethnic minorities in Burma.

The report was researched by EarthRights International staff who interviewed mainly Karen and Shan victims of government-sponsored discrimination, including forced labor, rape, destruction of identities and suppression of language. The report documents state-sponsored discrimination against minorities in schools and government institutions, discriminatory violence in conflict zones, and a pattern of targeting minorities for the worst abuses of forced labor.

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We, the individuals and organizations listed below, respectfully urge the Government of Japan to conduct a thorough study of the human rights and environmental situation around the Baluchaung Hydropower Plant No. 2 ("the Baluchaung" hereafter).

An EarthRights International report delivered to the International Labour Organization and the Department of Trade Union Rights about the forced labor situation in Burma. The report includes 17 interviews conducted with villagers from Shan State and Tenasserim Division between December 2000 and spring 2001.  The interviews show that troops of the State Peace and Development Council still use forced labor and are collecting labor and portering fees.

Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Spring 2001 (32 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 517)

This article explores the process and challenges of safeguarding anonymous plaintiffs who sue under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), such as in Doe v. Unocal. The article highlights the tension between certain plaintiffs' compelling need for confidentiality and the U.S. judicial system's tradtional emphasis on openness and defendants' rights. After reviewing the history and legal as well as policy issues surrounding anonymous litigation in U.S. federal court, the article surveys the procedural steps plaintiffs follow when seeking to sue with pseudonyms and discusses the use of court-structured protective orders. To demonstrate the complexities of anonymous litigation, the article examines two case studies based on real, ongoing litigation. The article concludes that despite the challenges, federal courts' willingness to grant anonymity to some plaintiffs is both justified and just, and that in the ATCA context such willingness helps facilitate adjudication of international human rights abuses and deter future violations.

Pseudonymity and the Alien Tort Claims Act

This report is a supplement to More of the Same: Forced Labor Continues in Burma (October 2000 – September 2001), which documents the continued use of forced labor by the Burmese military despite the government’s assertions that forced labor has ended.  This report demonstrates that civilians continue to be conscripted for forced labor by military units providing security to two natural gas pipelines in southern Burma, the Yadana and Yetagun pipelines.  The multinational oil companies that operate these pipelines, including TotalFinaElf (formerly Total) of France, Premier Oil of the United Kingdom, and Unocal of the United States, continue to be morally complicit and legally responsible for the forced labor occurring in the pipeline region.

Supplemental Report: Forced Labor

"For better or for worse, we have blood on our hands."
-- Sukumbhand Paribatra, Deputy Foreign Minister of Thailand

Since the early 1990's, a terrible drama has been unfolding in Burma. Three western oil companies -- Total, Premier, and Unocal -- entered into partnerships with the brutal Burmese miltary regime to build the Yadana and Yetagun natural gas pipelines. The regime created a highly militarized pipeline corridor in what had previously been a relatively peaceful area, resulting in violent suppression of dissent, environmental destruction, forced labor and portering, forced relocations, torture, rape, and summary executions.

EarthRights International co-founder Ka Hsaw Wa and a team of field staff traveled on both sides of the Thai-Burmese border in the Tenasserim region to document the conditions in the pipeline corridor. In the nearly four years since the release of "Total Denial" (1996), the violence and forced labor in the pipeline region have continued unabated. This report builds on the evidence in "Total Denial" and brings to light several new facets of the tragedy in the Tenasserim region.

Download: Total Denial Continues

Virginia Journal of International Law, Winter 2000 (40 Va. J. Int'l L. 545)

This article demonstrates that some victims of environmental abuses caused by transnational corporations may have strong claims in U.S. courts under the Alien Tort Claims Act. The article reviews voluminous sources of international law and shows how they establish norms of customary international law that plaintiffs can rely on to bring ATCA claims for redress of egregious environmental devastation. It explains that plaintiffs in appropriate circumstances may have claims asserting the right to life, the right to a healthy environment, crimes against humanity, race discrimination, genocide and cultural genocide.

The article also discusses many of the arguments corporate defendants have used to try to dismiss ATCA environmental and human rights cases. Claims similar to those addressed have been and are being litigated currently in suits against Union Carbide regarding the Bhopal disaster in 1985, Freeport-McMoRan regarding its mine in Irian Jaya, Rio Tinto regarding its Panguna mine in Bougainville, Texaco regarding its destruction of the Ecuadorean Amazon and Southern Peru Copper Corporation regarding its smelter in Ilo, Peru.

This report is currently not available electronically. Please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it in order to obtain a hard copy. 

Before Dick Cheney was selected as George W. Bush’s running mate, EarthRights International (ERI) had decided to look into oil services giant Halliburton, where Cheney was CEO.The reason for our interest was Halliburton’s prominent role in a corporate coalition called USA-Engage, an offshoot of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) that has become an obstacle to democracy movements in the United States and in Burma, two countries where ERI works actively.

Halliburton's Destructive Engagement

Issue Paper of EarthRights International's Burma Project

Since 1988, when the Burmese military regime opened up the country to foreign investment after a generation of isolation, the country has seen no improvement on a whole range of indicators, such as education, health and poverty, that investment is supposed to help improve. Instead, investment has brought a doubling in the size of the country's army and major arms purchases that have in turn furthered the repression. Investment has also been concentrated in extractive industries, namely logging, gems and natural gas, resulting in the selling off of Burma's natural resources at alarming rates. The stream of refugees and migrants out of the country -- fleeing the human and economic devastation brought about by the regime -- is perhaps the clearest indicator that investment and business engagement with Burma are not working.

Destructive Engagement: A Decade of Foreign Investment in Burma