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The following post was written by Karl, a volunteer English teacher at the Health and Earth Rights Training (HEART) program in Mae Sot, Thailand, on the Burma border.

After arriving in Mae Sot, I found myself sitting in a small restaurant eating very spicy chicken and rice and feeling the most excited and grateful that I can remember. Soon I would be starting my volunteer position and I couldn’t wait. I wanted a real “immersion” experience in Burma's culture and this is certainly what I was heading for. Little did I know what was in store…

My volunteer placement is at the HEART school, which stands for Health and Earth Rights Training. The school’s focus is on health education, human rights and the environment, but gender equality, woman’s rights and many other subjects are also part of the seven and a half month course.

There are 17 students, the majority in their early 20s and one in his late 30s. About half of the students have been living in refugee camps while most of the others come from various organizations based in and around Mae Sot and as far as Chiang Mai. 

The HEART school

As part of learning English, the students write 10 pages every week in a journal about anything they choose. Most write about their families, friends and people they have left behind. I read their journals every week to correct the grammar and it is a reminder to me of where the students have come from and what is important to them. The most consistent themes are a desire to make a difference in their home village and help the ethnic groups still living there. The students write about deforestation, health and human rights issues, and almost every other problem that is reported throughout Burma and in each student’s community.

Tomorrow marks the start of the fourth Mekong Legal Network (MLN) meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Public interest legal professions and civil society leaders from all six of the Mekong countries (Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), representing both international and local organizations, will be discussing their work, sharing experiences, and developing legal strategies to address key human rights and environmental concerns in the Mekong region. They will be joined by friends and allies from around the world, including ERI's co-founders Katie Redford and Ka Hsaw Wa. The broad themes of the three day meeting include business, human rights and the environment in ASEAN, proposed hydropower projects along the Mekong River mainstream, and investment trends and developments inside Burma.

On the final day of the meeting, the MLN participants will come together with the participants in ERI's new Myanmar Advocacy Training to meet, hear from experts, and discuss joint strategies to address emerging business and human rights challenges as Burma increasingly opens up to regional and international investment and influence. The discussion will focus on issues facing lawyers and legal institutions in the country, the experiences of veteran Burmese lawyers and civil society members, along with frameworks for responsible investment by foreign corporations.

Throughout the meeting, participants will form small groups to exchange ideas on how lawyers and civil society in the Mekong countries can work together and generate support at both the regional and international level. We're very excited to see MLN's members using legal strategies to empower communities facing earth rights abuses, and we'll share more details about this event after it concludes.

The video below was filmed at the last MLN meeting, in late 2011.

Earlier this week, a colleague shared a letter that brought both a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. It was a public letter from the 6th, 7th and 8th graders of the Foothills School of Arts and Science in Boise, Idaho, and was addressed to Mary Shapiro, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The letter was motivated by the students’ concern for the students and families of their sister school in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It added their voices to the growing call for strong SEC rules on the purchase and use of Congolese “conflict minerals.” The Dodd-Frank Wallstreet Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in 2010, included a provision requiring that companies track and disclose conflict minerals used in their products, but two years later the SEC has not yet issued the necessary rules to implement this provision.

It did my heart good to learn of these young people - so far removed from the DRC – reminding the SEC of the urgent need to respond to the violence and abuses arising from the fight for control over the extraction and sale of these minerals. It was wonderful to read how committed these students were to ensuring that the SEC issue strong conflict mineral rules . . . and issue them soon.

While far too many politicians and corporate lobbyists here in DC drone on about how such requirements would put an undue, or even unmanageable, burden on the economic actors involved, the letter from these young people put things into perspective, simply and succinctly. They pointed out that the real issue is that the fight for these minerals has lead to rape, mutilation and murder, of young and old, at the hands of armed groups. They also stated another obvious truth: the electronics companies most likely to be impacted by these regulations are not only some of the most profitable companies active in the US today, but also some of the most innovative. As the students stated: “We are confident that they can afford to support human rights and figure out how to make this process work, even in the very complex situation presented in the DRC”.

They ended their letter with an equally simple and compelling statement for why we must support the Congolese people, who are being victimized by those willing to use any means to grab these minerals:

The day after SCOTUS ordered the expansion and reargument of Kiobel, I sat in a coffee shop with a friend (and fellow law student) reading the New York Times. As I read through an article about the case, which gave a bare-bones account of the summary of the issues and the March 6 decision, I parroted the facts to my companion: “Unbelievable! They want to know whether US courts can even hear cases alleging human rights abuse abroad! This shouldn’t even be an issue!”

To my great dismay, instead of sharing my outrage, my friend simply responded, “Well, why should US courts be allowed to hear cases between two foreign parties for abuses committed abroad?”

At the time, I stammered through an argument about providing remedies and upholding international human rights norms, but I admit that at the time I could not provide the legal analysis he was looking for. A first year law student too often buried in my Property and Civil Procedure textbooks, I rarely found the time to immerse myself in the issues that sent me to law school in the first place. Thankfully, my summer legal internship has quickly corrected this.

Last week, the EarthRights office was abuzz as we put the finishing touches on own amicus brief in support of Esther Kiobel and her co-plaintiffs, and helped our allies finalize three other briefs. While I can’t take credit for piecing together any of the substance that will hopefully convince SCOTUS to rule in favor of corporate liability, working alongside those who did was definitely a far cry from my experience in March, when my head was stuck in my Property book. The process was demanding, and tedious at times, but the experience was invaluable and the gravity of the Kiobel case constantly drove our work forward.

This week, speaking before the International Labour Organization’s 101st International Labour Conference in Switzerland as part of her historic visit to Europe, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi recommended that governments prohibit their companies from doing business with Burma’s state-owned oil and gas company, Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) until the company adopts responsible and transparent business practices.  She noted (emphasis added):

The Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), the state-owned company under the Ministry of Energy with which all foreign participation in the energy sector takes place through joint-venture arrangements, lacks both transparency and accountability at present. The Government needs to apply internationally recognized standards, such as the IMF’s Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency. Other countries could help by not allowing their own companies to partner MOGE, unless it was signed up to such codes. This would also ensure that their own companies would subject to the above codes themselves, and to the various requirements of publish what you pay.

Because of the requirement that all oil and gas investments be made through joint ventures with MOGE, Daw Suu’s recommendation effectively suggests to foreign governments that they prohibit companies from oil and gas investments in Burma until there are significant reforms within MOGE.  Daw Suu also endorsed the requirements of publish what you pay, and international movement to require the transparent disclosure of payments to governments related to the extraction of oil, gas, and mining.

Earlier this year, the US government argued on the side of victims of human rights abuses at the US Supreme Court. In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell), the government argued that corporations should not be exempt from responsibility for committing human rights abuses. But when the Supreme Court ordered a rehearing in the case, and asked whether human rights lawsuits could be brought when the abuses happened outside the US, we wondered whether the Obama administration would continue to side with the victims.

Today, the government submitted its brief (below) - and it's on the wrong side. I have rarely been so disappointed in my government.

In this case, which involves victims of crimes against humanity in Nigeria who allege that Shell was complicit in the violent suppression of a nonviolent movement, the Obama administration argues that courts should not allow the human rights claims to proceed. The administration doesn't urge a blanket rule against all cases arising in foreign countries, but it does argue that in a case like Kiobel, where the defendant is a foreign company doing business in the US, and where the abuses were committed by government forces within their own territory, the courts should deny the victims justice.

This position undoubtedly provoked severe controversy within the administration. How do we know? Some of the government's lawyers appear to have refused to sign the brief. Last time, the government's brief was signed by lawyers in the Department of Justice as well as the State Department and the Commerce Department. This time, only the Justice Department is on the brief. Notably, Harold Koh, the top lawyer in the State Department and a longtime human rights advocate, did not put his name to the brief.

Why is Obama's position wrong? Several reasons. First, the government acknowledges that ordinary lawsuits, involving things like dangerous retail products or fraud, could be brought in US courts by foreigners against any company doing business in the US. It urges the Supreme Court to adopt a different rule for the most egregious human rights abuses, arguing that those victims, unlike victims of everyday wrongs, should be denied access to US courts.

Last year I was lucky enough to be involved in the founding of a new partner school, the Health and Earth Rights Training Center(HEART) in Mae Sot, Thailand. HEART is the brainchild of the inspiring Dr Cynthia Maung founder of the acclaimed Mae Tao Clinic, and ERI’s executive director Ka Hsaw Wa. Together they set out to combine issues of earth rights and health, recognizing the devastating health impacts that environmental and human rights abuses can have on local populations.

Situated on the Thai-Burma border, for decades Mae Sot has provided sanctuary for refugees and migrants escaping the terrors of civil war and government oppression in neighboring Burma. Here communities have waited for years, scraping together a transient existence, as conflict continues across the border. Meanwhile their homelands are ravaged by fighting and a paucity of resources, resulting in rampant environmental destruction.

HEART is not only a school, it is also a place to explore new possibilities for addressing health and earth rights challenges. It is also a family, and over the twelve months since its founding it has become deeply enmeshed in the lives and activities of the local community in Mae Sot.

One of my favorite parts of my work is spending time at the school. Located on the outskirts of town, it’s a peaceful place - frogs jump and croak in the surrounding rice paddies, bicycles creak over dirt paths and students play barefoot football under a pink sky and the soft hint of surrounding mountains. They study by day (and sometimes by night) in an open air classroom. There are the occasional puppies and chickens underfoot, and in rainy season the odd gust of rain might find its way inside.

Outside the HEART school

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that Maynas Carijanao v. Occidental Petroleum, our case on behalf of indigenous Peruvians against Oxy for oil contamination in the Amazon, can proceed in U.S. courts. If this sounds familiar, it's because the Ninth Circuit has done this twice before - but this time, it's for good.

What's going on here? The short answer is that Oxy filed several petitions to get the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its decision (asking for a "rehearing"), and the final petition was just rejected. This petition was for rehearing "en banc," which means that the full court - twenty-seven active judges in the Ninth Circuit, although one was recused - votes on whether to reconsider the decision, and if they vote in favor, the case would go to a panel of eleven judges. En banc rehearing is the final stage at the appeals court, so the only option remaining to Oxy is the Supreme Court.

Why did this take so long? The Ninth Circuit issued its original decision a year and a half ago, in December 2010. The three judges hearing the case then considered Oxy's first rehearing petition, and modified their opinion slightly and reissued it in June 2011. But then after Oxy filed their petition for en banc rehearing, it took months for the final order denying the petition.

What happened is probably explained by the opinions that were issued along with yesterday's order. Chief Judge Kozinski, who's usually described as libertarian, wrote a dissent, saying that the court should have reheard the case; he was joined by four of the court's more conservative judges. Judge Wardlaw, the presiding judge on the original three-judge panel, wrote an opinion in response. The actual en banc voting process usually doesn't take more than a couple months, so the back-and-forth opinions are probably responsible for most of the delay.

As I write this post, the Obama administration and its Solicitor General are deliberating which side they will support in the upcoming Kiobel v. Shell case, where Shell says they shouldn't be liable for human rights abuses simply because -- get this -- they're a corporation. We need the administration to send a clear message that corporations cannot be immune from legal responsibility for the actions they commit across the globe.

When this case first made its way to the Supreme Court earlier this year, countries like the U.K. and the Netherlands submitted briefs in support of Shell, but the U.S. government thankfully stood with real people -- victims of human rights abuses like torture and crimes against humanity. Now the case is being heard again, governments are weighing in again, and the Obama administration could switch sides -- we can't let that happen!

When Shell argues that they are are simply a corporation and should therefore not be held liable for their actions overseas, I find myself truly astounded. If you or I were to travel overseas and commit human rights abuses, we would rightfully be held accountable for our actions. But a corporation gets to be immune?

It is critical that the United States not allow our country to act as a safe haven for multinational corporations that are complicit in human rights abuses around the world. If these corporations are present in the US, doing business, making money -- and yes, enjoying free speech rights -- then they better abide by US and international laws, and be held accountable when they don't.

We've put together a petition that highlights the urgency of this moment.  Shell and its friends have raised their voices loud and clear, asking for immunity from human rights law in US courts.  We need to raise our own voices and let the administration know that it is unacceptable to stand alongside Shell and other corporations that put profit over people. Tell the White House to stand up for human rights and real people, not for corporate power!

Last week, a local Arakan paper released startling photos of thousands of dead fish along the Coast of Kyauk Phyu Township in Burma. While it’s not definitive what caused such massive amounts of fish to die, the proximity of the dead fish to China’s oil and gas pipeline projects and claims by locals that Chinese companies are blasting coral reefs with dynamite — a technique used to create gravel for the construction of seaports and oil and gas pipelines and to ease access for large ships — suggests the two might are connected. Since the blasts began occurring in 2009, local residents have witnessed an increasing scarcity of fish, as well as mass deaths of other aquatic animals such as turtles and prawns.

Since late 2009, China has been constructing oil and gas pipelines, as well as seaports, in the Arakan state without consent or consultations from the local people. Daewoo international is also constructing a natural gas terminal and offshore gas platforms in the area. The projects began without transparent environmental and social impact assessments, and little information has been available on the potential impacts to the fragile ecosystem, including mangrove forests and coral reefs that are critical to the local fishing industry, a primary means of survival for many local communities. On top of this, local authorities have placed restrictions on fishing activities in the area, further threatening local livelihoods.

Dead fish in Arakan state