EarthRights International submitted two reports to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights today, in connection with the U.N. Human Rights Council’s periodic review of the human rights obligations of the United States. The first submission, a coalition report coauthored by ERI, the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Western Shoshone Defense Project, evaluates the United States’ performance on corporate accountability for activities abroad or affecting indigenous people’s rights, including the areas of protecting against human rights abuses by corporations and providing remedies for corporate abuses.  The second report, submitted by ERI alone, focuses on the United States government’s approach in human rights litigation in U.S. courts.

The corporate accountability report examines the degree to which the U.S. is upholding its duties to respect, protect and remedy human rights abuses involving business actors both domestically and abroad.  The report cites numerous allegations of corporate complicity in serious human rights abuses, such as:

• complicity in forced labor in Burma by Unocal, as highlighted in ERI’s landmark lawsuit Doe v. Unocal [2];
• Chiquita’s participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Colombia, currently being challenged by ERI’s class action suit Doe v. Chiquita [3];
• the use of forced labor and child labor by Bridgestone in Liberia;
• human trafficking of Nepali laborers by Kellogg Brown & Root;
• nonconsensual medical experimentation by Pfizer; and
• extrajudicial killings and torture committed by private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report points out that in many instances there is no adequate recourse or means of redress for such abuses committed by companies which fall under U.S. jurisdiction, which is itself a human rights failure. The report contains a series of recommendations which, if followed, would bring the U.S. closer to compliance with its human rights obligations.

ERI’s own report focuses on the Bush administration’s radical anti-human rights approach to civil litigation in U.S. courts, where the government repeatedly advised the courts to dismiss human rights cases against private corporations and argued that corporations could not be held liable for complicity in human rights abuses.  “The Obama administration needs to repudiate the radical anti-human rights approach of the Bush administration with respect to litigation against corporations," said Marco Simons, ERI’s Legal Director.  “Although there are some signs of progress, the United States cannot fulfill its international obligations without embracing remedies for victims of human rights abuses in U.S. courts.”

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a new process initiated by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.  Every five years, each U.N. member state is evaluated on its performance in meeting all of its human rights obligations, including those under treaties as well as voluntary commitments and endorsements of documents such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. As part of the UPR process, nongovernmental organizations and coalitions can submit reports on states’ human rights performance, highlighting successes and identifying failures and areas where improvement is needed.  This is the first UPR for the United States; at its November session, the Human Rights Council will review U.S. performance, and will subsequently issue an outcome report.  ERI’s reports will be submitted to the United States and considered by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights for inclusion in the review process.