UPDATE - KASKY MYSTERIOUSLY CRUMBLES, NIKE ESCAPES
Rebecca Spencer

US activist Marc Kasky’s lawsuit challenging Nike’s lies about sweatshop labour is over (see Newsletter 14, ‘No hearing for Nike’).
On September 12th the company announced that it had reached a settlement with Kasky in which it would pay $1.5m to the Fair Labor Association.
At the time of the settlement the California Supreme Court had ruled that Nike’s PR efforts should be classed as ‘commercial speech’ and fall under the laws governing advertising, rather than being eligible for ‘free speech’ protection, as Nike had argued. A decision in Nike’s favour would have effectively meant a ‘right to lie’ for the company. Nike appealed this decision to the federal Supreme Court. In June this year, the US Supreme Court refused to rule on the appeal, saying the merits of the case - had Nike actually lied? - must be decided in California. Kasky and his lawyers were awaiting ‘discovery’ by Nike - disclosure of all relevant documents, evidence which other labour rights activists were also very much looking forward to seeing.
So why did Kasky settle? The question is causing confusion and outrage across anti-corporate America. For a start, Nike has a seat on the board of the Fair Labor Association, and clothing companies hold a veto over the FLA’s activities. The phrase ‘front group’ springs to mind. Yet a joint press release issued by Kasky and Nike says that ‘Mr. Kasky is satisfied that this settlement reflects Nike’s commitment to positive change where factory workers are concerned.’ At the time of writing, Kasky and his lawyers remain unavailable for comment.
It is interesting to note that in the light of the UK’s own Human Rights Act - some of which applies to corporations, even though they are obviously not human - a similar case could arise here. There is little case law as yet on the right to freedom of expression in advertising, but lawyers writing on the subject have noted that theoretically there is nothing stopping corporations from claiming a ‘right to lie’.

www.reclaimdemocracy.org
www.corporatepredators.org
www.odwyerpr.com

REIGNING IN THE MULTI-NATIONALS
After so many years of doing what it likes, international business could finally find itself accountable for its part in human rights abuses. August 13th this year saw the United Nations sub-committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights unanimously adopt the ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.’ The Norms bring together a range of obligations drawn from existing international human rights, labour and environmental standards. Unlike existing international initiatives supposedly promoting corporate social responsibility, the Norms will be compulsory and enforceable.
The Norms are not currently binding. For that to happen the resolution has to be ratified by the 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission. Unfortunately, lobby groups such as the International Chamber of Commerce, of which most large corporations are a member, and influential US groups, the International Business Council and the National Foreign Trade Council, have until March next year to wield their significant influence.
The ICC have already expressed their opposition which, given their close ties to the UN could prove fatal. As early as February 1998 a delegation of 25 corporate executives met with Kofi Annan and other senior UN officials and issued a joint statement promising closer collaboration. According to the ICC, ‘the two groups resolved to form a close global partnership to secure greater input from ICC member companies into the UN’s economic decision-making.’

UK DEMOCRACY - GOVERNMENT RIGS VOTE OVER FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

“So there seems to be a noose tightening around the collective necks of the health food industry from European regulatory action...”
Josef Hasslberger - “European Food Supplements - An Industry Perspective” March 2002

“I was a member of this Committee until I said, very honestly, that I would vote against the regulations...other hon. Members have been taken off the Committee and some government members have been put on it at short notice. I strongly believe that the food supplements directive is unacceptable. If it is about safety, the vitamins should not be available today...They should already have been taken off the shelf”.
Kate Hoey MP (Lab, Vauxhall)
Speech to Standing Committee July 2003

“It is a very slowly tightening noose, but it is tightening nevertheless and it appears to be inspired by - this is a suspicion not backed by hard evidence - the pharmaceutical producers.”
Josef Hasslberger - “European Food Supplements - An Industry Perspective” March 2002

“The regulations send out the message that, once again, the elite in Brussels, backed up, I am afraid, by the connivance of the Government, are running our country. The message will go out to millions of ordinary people that the Government care more about the pharmaceutical industry than they do about ordinary people’s opportunities and rights”
Kate Hoey MP (Lab, Vauxhall)
Speech to Standing Committee July 2003

Recently, and despite opposition from other MP’s and the House of Lords, the regulations contained in the European Food Supplements directive were approved by a government-appointed committee of 14 MP’s. There had been no parliamentary debate, or public consultation. As a result, three hundred nutrients and 5000 products will be banned from the shelves of UK health food stores by 1st August 2005.

NEW HOPE FROM AN OLD LAW
Next month sees the US 9th Circuit Court file its second ruling on the suit brought against Unocal for human rights abuses in Burma. Unocal, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, is accused of aiding and abetting the Burmese military in forcing entire communities from their homes, using slave labour and committing rape, torture and murder.
Naturally, Unocal reps deny the charges. ‘The charges are not against Unocal, they’re against the Burmese government and the Burmese military,’ says spokesperson Barry Lane. Unocal is unfairly caught up in the suit, he adds, simply because the company had a contract with the government.
A little-known, 200-year-old U.S. law - never before used to sue a multinational corporation - has become the basis for suing Unocal over its alleged links to rights abuses committed during the construction of a $1 billion gas pipeline. Since the Unocal case was filed in 1996, more than two dozen suits have been brought against multinational corporations using the same U.S. law, called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA).
The 1789 Act grants U.S. Courts jurisdiction in any dispute where it is alleged that the “law of nations”, or international laws, are broken. This is significant because it gives foreigners the right to seek compensation for violations of international law in U.S. Courts. In 1980 a Paraguayan man successfully used ATCA to sue the policeman who had tortured his son to death in Paraguay.

If the court’s second decision echoes the first, which found sufficient evidence for Unocal to stand trial, the case will move forward and set a precedent that could see scores of corporations defending their human-rights records before federal judges.

Del Monte Foods, Exxon Mobil and Coca-Cola are among corporations facing litigation.
“It’s only a matter of time before some company becomes the Enron of human-rights abuse,” says Elliot Schrage, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former senior vice-president for global affairs at the Gap.
“The ATCA cases are the first wave in a tide of lawsuits that will seek to hold multinational corporations accountable for their global operations.”

In one particularly brutal instance, a farmer's wife has charged that Burmese soldiers hired by Unocal entered her home, kicked her down the stairs, knocked her unconscious and shoved her and an infant daughter into a burning fireplace. The little girl later died from infected head wounds, after the soldiers refused the family access to medical care.

GREEN GLOVES CAN FREE UK
A pledge to pull up GM crops was launched as the results of the Government’s public debate on genetic modification were announced in London last week. The Green Gloves Pledge, a pledge to peacefully remove GM crops or support those who do, was formally announced with the delivery of a six and half foot green glove to Tony Blair at the gates of Downing Street bearing the question “Which part of No GM do you not understand?”. An accompanying letter to the Prime Minister was also handed in.
Delivering the glove, Kathryn Tulip, one of the organisers of Green Gloves pledge, said:
‘Once again Tony Blair looks set to ignore the overwhelming sentiment of the British people who do not want GM. The British people have clearly said no to GM again and again. Now we are underlining our resolve with a promise of action - either this government agrees to deliver a GM-free Britain or a nation of gardeners will put on their gloves and take that decision into their own hands. We are here to let him know that for every GM plant he allows to be planted there will be many pairs of hands willing to pull them up again.’
The launch of the Green Gloves pledge to pull up GM crops comes as new leaked letters from Margaret Beckett suggest the Government is still intending to press ahead with GM crop commercialisation despite the clear public sentiment against GM expressed in the Public Debate. The government’s own advisors recently warned in an economic review of GM crops that there were no near term benefits for the UK economy and that any decision to press ahead with GM could result in widespread civil unrest. Tony Blair’s decision to hire Monsanto spin doctor David Hill further suggests that the PM is once again going to ignore public opinion in what former environment Minister Michael Meacher has called Blair’s ‘Iraq mark II’.
Many hundreds of people have signed the pledge including farmers, scientists, clergy and politicians. The names of those pledging are currently being kept confidential but the number signing will regularly be made public, starting on October 16th when the results of the Farm Scale Evaluations of GM crops is announced. A similar ‘green gloves pledge’ launched in New Zealand to stave off the lifting of the GM moratorium there, gathered over 3000 names in 12 weeks of people willing to pull up GM crops. The UK organisers also expect thousands to sign the pledge in the UK, increasing pressure on the government as it enters the run up to the next election.
e-mail: pledge@greengloves.org
Homepage:www.greengloves.org

UPDATE - GM and GM FREE FIGHTERS
As Brazil gave in to “pressure” (bribery, threats) to grow GM crops, here in the UK. Bayer CropScience has announced its decision not to grow trial GM crops this year. Apparently, activists pulling up test trials are to blame, along with DEFRA’s (current) refusal to make test sites secret. ‘We’re not saying that we won’t start commerical trials (in the UK) again’ said a Bayer spokesman. ‘We’ll most likely restart them in a different climate’.Campaigners believe that Bayer may be stalling until MS8/RF3 oil seed rape gets an EU Part C consent, meaning that field trial locations no longer have to be notified. However, they say that the delay of a year might well be significant.