In July 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business group, issued a report on "out-of-court tactics" used in relation to transnational litigation in the United States. The basic observation of the report, titled "Think Globally, Sue Locally,"is that corporate defendants in transnational cases, which typically challenge human rights abuses or environmental damage, are also frequently subject to public education and outreach campaigns, including reports, videos, shareholder advocacy, and media outreach. ERI agrees with this observation; when an abuse is serious enough to merit a lawsuit, it is also serious enough that we want to educate the public, shareholders, and policymakers about the problem so that the victims can obtain justice and similar abuses do not happen again. Read more »
Released on July 5, 2010, Energy Insecurity: How Total, Chevron, and PTTEP Contribute to Human Rights Violations, Financial Secrecy, and Nuclear Proliferation in Burma (Myanmar) reveals how these companies have deceived their shareholders, the public, and governments about their legal ability to disclose their financial details in Burma and presents new evidence on the revenues generated by the Yadana project for the Burmese military regime. Additionally, the report describes violent human rights abuses committed in the last year by the Burma Army providing security for the oil companies and the pipeline, and analyzes how the companies remain legally liable for such abuses.
EarthRights International has submitted a report to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights in connection with the U.N. Human Rights Council's periodic review of the human rights obligations of Burma (Myanmar). The report focuses on human rights abuses associated with oil and gas projects in Burma, which are emblematic of abuses on development projects in Burma generally, and makes a number of recommendations to eliminate such abuses in the future.
As public outrage at the oil industry intensifies and questions on how to reign in the industry abound, an unprecedented global coalition of communities harmed by – and fighting back against – the industry present both a groundbreaking report, “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report,” and a landmark organizing model for taking on Big Oil.
Written by dozens of community leaders from sixteen countries and ten states across the United States where Chevron operates, the 60-page report encompasses the full range of Chevron’s activities, from coal to chemicals, offshore to onshore production, pipelines to refineries, natural gas to toxic waste, and lobbying and campaign contributions to greenwashing.
ERI authored the section on Chevron's activities in Burma
This volume is comprised of writings from three classes of EarthRights Mekong School graduates. EarthRights International’s Mekong School is a training program for civil society advocates from the Mekong Region (Yunnan/China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) whose work focuses on human rights and the environment.
The authors whose work is featured in this volume represent a wide range of communities along the Mekong, from its origins on the Tibetan plateau to the Mekong Delta, where the river completes its 4,350 km journey and flows into the South China Sea. Mekong School alumni speak a cumulative total of twenty-three regional languages (Brao, Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Jarai, Kavet, Khmer Krom, Khmu, Krueng, Lao, Lisu, Mon, Naxi, Palaung, Phu Thai, Pumi, Shan, Tai Lue, Tampuen, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese), and are committed to the shared goal of strengthening environmental promotion and protection in the Mekong region. Read more »
On September 10, 2009 EarthRights International (ERI) published almost 200 pages of new research in two publications linking the oil giants Total S.A., Chevron Corporation, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Exploration and Production Company Ltd. (PTTEP), and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) to forced labor, killings, high-level corruption, and authoritarianism in connection to their Yadana natural gas pipeline in military-ruled Burma. The reports also document the flawed corporate social responsibility programs implemented by Total, the operator of the project, and reveal for the first time that the pipeline in Burma has generated more than US$7 billion dollars for the companies and the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
On October 15, 2009 Total publicly released a 12-page response to ERI. Read more »
On December 1st, 2009, lawyers with EarthRights International’s Mekong Legal Advocacy Institute (MLAI) and the Cambodian Samreth Law Group submitted an in-depth legal analysis to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) regarding proposals to build up to 11 dams on the lower mainstream of the Mekong River. This marks the first time a multi-national team of lawyers has addressed the MRC on the dam plans, and promises to bring a new perspective on the proper role of lawyers and the necessity of rule-of-law to provide justice to all the people who rely on the Mekong River for their daily livelihoods. Read more »
Based on seven years of research, this 84-page report describes Total and Chevron’s public relations endeavors, including impact assessments commissioned by the companies since 2002. The impact assessments were conducted by the US-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA). ERI presents evidence proving that Total lied to the public when it claimed that the International Labour Organization (ILO) certified that the company eradicated forced labor in its project area. The ILO made no such statements and has publicly disavowed the claim as untrue and inaccurate. The report also finds that CDA’s favorable assessments of Total’s impacts in Burma are inaccurate and misleading. ERI describes CDA’s methodology and findings as “deeply flawed” and especially problematic because investors, policymakers, and other oil companies rely on them as credible.
Based primarily on over two years of research, Total Impact: The Human Rights, Environmental, and Financial Impacts of Total and Chevron’s Yadana Gas Project in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar) explains that Total and Chevron’s Yadana gas project has generated US$4.83 billion dollars for the Burmese regime. The 110-page report explains how the regime would have excluded at least US$4.80 billion dollars of that revenue from the country’s national budget.
Summary:
This collection features human rights and environmental reports written by the Class of 2009 at the EarthRights School Burma. The fieldwork research and writing that went into these reports forms an essential part of the students' development as forces for positive social change. Just as importantly, it offers a chance for people in rural areas throughout Burma to speak to the global community; voices that would not be heard were it not for their own courage and that of the ERSB student-researchers. These voices speak of land confiscation, failures in education systems, the challenges faced by migrant and stateless people, the social problems arising in small rural communities from drug abuse, and the impacts of dams and other large-scale developments, among other earth rights issues of concern.
