On July 28, 2003, President Bush signed the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. That law states that "no article may be imported into the United States that is produced, mined, manufactured, grown, or assembled in Burma." This means that no teak may be legally imported into the United States directly from Burma, and that the companies listed on these webpages, including Kingsley-Bate, East Teak Trading Company, and Country Casual will have stopped importing teak from Burma, in order to comply with the law.

With human rights scandals tainting the operations of extractive resource operations around the world, seven major oil and mining companies recently signed a code of conduct pledging that their security operations will meet minimal human rights standards. A number of governments, human rights and media organizations were quick to praise the initiative as an "important step." But before we applaud too vigorously, we should evaluate whether voluntary codes such as this one are truly a step in the right direction.