Annual Reports
As we release our 2023 Annual Report, meaningful change feels, for the first time in a long time, within reach. The conversation of two decades ago, where the goal was stronger statements and commitments from companies, is quickly coming to an end. Legal accountability for human rights and environmental harms in global supply chains is gaining extraordinary traction. New laws and legal precedents in many jurisdictions in the Global North and South are changing the baseline for companies, making social responsibility a matter of regulatory compliance and not just public relations. The rise of mandatory human rights due diligence and effective forced labor import bans, along with a few civil liability victories, promise to level the playing field for all companies, so that the companies who perpetuate the race to the bottom don’t have an economic advantage in the market over those that follow the law.
CAL’s 2022 Annual Report
In 2022, CAL celebrated our fifth birthday. Five years in, we’re reflecting on the ways we have challenged the exploitative models major companies rely on across various industries. We have tested supply chain contract language that works for workers – by ensuring that, wherever they are in the world, they have the right to seek justice when they are hurt or their rights are violated. We have innovated within trade law, by leveraging access to the US market in order to pressure companies to clean up their supply chains and remediate egregious abuses like forced labor and trafficking. We have worked with partner organizations, workers, and communities on nearly every continent to parse the root causes of corporate abuse, determine points of influence, and develop out-of-the-box strategies for justice.
Our 2022 annual report highlights some of the strides we made towards corporate accountability in our fifth year. As you browse the report, you’ll see that we collaborated with impacted communities, confronted exploitative systems, designed worker-driven remedies, and built strategic coalitions, all in the name of corporate accountability.
CAL’s 2021 Annual Report
In 2021, we continued to grow and fight for corporate accountability around the world. We added two attorney positions and a full time office coordinator, and our Executive Director, Charity Ryerson, won the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award for designing and implementing the Corporate Liability and Sustainable Peace (CLASP) Lab. We launched the Hippocratic License 3.0 for software developers who want to ensure their software is used for good, published a report on the impact of COVID-19 on cocoa farmers, and testified before Congress on systemic labor rights abuse in the Dominican sugar and West African cocoa industries. We also filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court supporting plaintiffs’ request to keep their identities private as they fight to hold Chiquita accountable for financing paramilitaries in Colombia. Most exciting of all, we sued Rainforest Alliance and Hershey for their false and deceptive marketing about supply chain sustainability and ethical practices for certain Hershey chocolate products! Read all about these efforts and more in our 2021 Annual Report!
CAL’s 2020 Annual Report
In 2020, we continued to push for big business to be held accountable for profiting from human rights abuses around the world. We called out big chocolate for its decades-long failure to address child and forced labor on cocoa farms in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire by filing two amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, urged the US government to stop imports of goods made by Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim minorities in Chinese internment camps, and pushed for businesses that contributed to atrocities during Colombia's armed conflict to be held responsible. We expanded our network of human rights attorneys, social justice advocates, and community partners through initiatives like our litigation skillshare with American and Colombian lawyers, our Idea Bank collaboration platform for attorneys, and partnerships with human rights-minded software developers.
2019 Annual Report
Our 2019 Annual Report highlights project and organizational milestones that Corporate Accountability Lab passed in FY2019. 2019 was full of connection, collaboration, and mutual support. With three new attorneys, expanded office space, and an ever-growing network of co-conspirators, we embraced failure and chased crazy ideas for corporate accountability to the ground or to the moon.
2018 CAL Magazine
When we launched Corporate Accountability Lab in early 2017, we had a vision that was outrageously ambitious. We wanted to use strategic legal and market interventions to shape global supply chains, across every industry and every region, in pursuit of human thriving and a clean environment. At less than two years old, we made extraordinary progress. Our 2018 Magazine describes our first three projects and other ideas we began working with in our lab, providing insights into how we think, what we hope for, and how we will get there.