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ERI Presents At Inaugural Yale Law School Symposium on Corporate Social Respnosibility |
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Written by EarthRights International
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Wednesday, 26 March 2008 |
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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.
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Matthew Smith and Naing Htoo at Yale Law School
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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.
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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. |
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).
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