Charity Ryerson
A New Global Minimum Tax on Corporations and ...

This year, states will begin implementing a global minimum tax rate of fifteen percent on multinational corporations with more than €750 million (about $810 million) in revenues. If these tax reforms succeed in increasing tax revenues across the approximately 140 implementing countries as they intend, these additional funds could be used to advance the social and economic rights of their citizens, especially for the most vulnerable populations, including those whose rights have been abused by corporations historically. However, the coming tax reforms are still so riddled with gray areas regarding form and function that it is too early to call the initiative a victory in corporate accountability.  

A New Global Minimum Tax on Corporations and Human Rights Implications
Charity Ryerson
Un año desde la prohibición del azúcar del ...

Durante los 365 días desde que se bloqueó la entrada de su azúcar a los Estados Unidos por trabajo forzoso, el Central Romana ha optado por implementar sólo cambios superficiales para los cañeros y utilizar estrategias políticas en un aparente intento de hacer desaparecer la WRO.

Un año desde la prohibición del azúcar del Central Romana en mercado EEUU por trabajo forzoso
Charity Ryerson
One year since Central Romana sugar banned from ...

Over the 365 days since its sugar was blocked from entering the United States, Central Romana has chosen to implement only superficial changes for workers while pulling political strings in an apparent effort to make the import ban disappear. 

One year since Central Romana sugar banned from US market for forced labor
Avery Kelly
Enbridge and the Dangers of Extractive ...

Last month, The Guardian revealed that Canadian pipeline company Enbridge has paid Minnesota police more than two and a half million dollars for services including the surveillance and arrest of Water Protectors resisting the company’s construction of a new Line 3 pipeline. This post situates the Enbridge-police agreement in Minnesota and violent crackdown against Water Protectors at Line 3 within a disturbing global context rooted in colonialism.

Enbridge and the Dangers of Extractive Industry-Police Alliances
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Avery Kelly
CAL & EarthRights Launch Updated Guide to ...

In 2019, CAL partnered with EarthRights International to update their Guide to the Foreign Legal Assistance statute. Given that the US is an increasingly difficult jurisdiction for transnational human rights cases against companies, this tool provides an opportunity for workers and community members to access key evidence located in the US even where they may not have been able to bring suit there. 

CAL & EarthRights Launch Updated Guide to Foreign Legal Assistance Statute, Allowing Attorneys Suing Companies Access to Discovery Process in the US
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30 FARMERS SUBMIT GRIEVANCE TO THE GHANA COCOA BOARD USING AGENCY’s GRIEVANCE AND REDRESS MECHANISM

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30 FARMERS SUBMIT GRIEVANCE TO THE GHANA COCOA BOARD USING AGENCY’s GRIEVANCE AND REDRESS MECHANISM

Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world, home to over 800,000 smallholder farmers who make up about 60 percent of Ghana’s agricultural workforce. Despite the massive profits that global chocolate companies earn, poverty is pervasive in Ghana’s cocoa-growing communities. According to the 2022 Cocoa Barometer, an overwhelming majority of farmers and their families live in poverty: the average cocoa farmer earns between $0.40 and $0.45 USD per day, whereas the living wage in Ghana is estimated as of 2022 to be $13.5 USD per day. Meanwhile, chocolate companies have been making record profits despite the pandemic and global inflation. 

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Sweet Deals, Sour Outcomes: How Speculation and Commoditization Affect Cocoa Farmers

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Sweet Deals, Sour Outcomes: How Speculation and Commoditization Affect Cocoa Farmers

The problem with the cocoa commodity price spike is not the increased price. Cocoa should be priced higher! But more of that value needs to go to the farmers who grow it. Outside of the commoditized market that supplies bulk quantities of cocoa to corporations such as Nestlé and Mondelez, alternative supply chain models already exist. Some smaller “premium” chocolate companies contract directly with farmers, paying up to $12,000 per metric ton of cocoa. They pay the premium price to ensure a supply of beans that are harvested by ethical, well-compensated laborers on an environmentally sustainable farm.

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When the Law Works: In re Chiquita, State Torts, and a New Frontier

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When the Law Works: In re Chiquita, State Torts, and a New Frontier

Beginning with the history of the case, this post covers the facts and implications of the recent unanimous verdict reached by a federal jury in In re Chiquita. The first part of the post details Chiquita’s history in Colombia, the human rights abuses associated with its relationship with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), and the litigation that followed. The second part of the post considers the immediate future of this case as well as its systemic implications with a particular focus on this verdict’s implications for the use of state tort law in human rights litigation.

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Human Rights Hypocrite: prison-made goods can be exported from the US but not imported

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Human Rights Hypocrite: prison-made goods can be exported from the US but not imported

The United States is both a world leader in the protection against forced labor – and one of the world’s most practiced and committed violators. This hypocrisy is due to an inherent contradiction in U.S. law: while it is illegal to import goods produced with forced or prison labor, it is not illegal to produce goods using prison labor or export goods produced in such a manner. This inconsistency means that incarcerated workers in the United States produce products that can – and likely are – exported to other countries, where they can be sold, perhaps even labeled as “Made in USA.”

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Canada Renews Efforts to Address Forced Labor in New Supply Chain Law, But Misses the Mark

Canada Renews Efforts to Address Forced Labor in New Supply Chain Law, But Misses the Mark

Canada’s long-awaited, Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act (Act) went into effect on January 1, 2024. While it is largely a disclosure law, it also makes Canada the first country in the world to ban the importation of goods made with child labor—a bold and controversial move, discussed further below. In this blog post, we provide an overview of the two key elements of the Act and then explain the Act’s limitations compared to other supply chain legislation.

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Responses to CAL’s Groundbreaking Report on Abuses in the Indian Shrimp Sector

Responses to CAL’s Groundbreaking Report on Abuses in the Indian Shrimp Sector

It has only been a few weeks since we published our report and already we are seeing shifts in the industry. In the coming months, we hope to see more improvements for workers and their communities. The first step towards change is acknowledging the problem. The attention on the industry and the acknowledgement from many U.S. retailers and distributors that they need to look into their supply chains, is a beginning. As we move forward, it is imperative that companies – both U.S. and Indian – do more than make appropriate statements. They must implement changes to upend the prevailing pattern of abuse.


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Can the U.S. Energy Transition Be “Just” If Critical Mineral Extraction Exploits Workers and Pollutes Communities?

Can the U.S. Energy Transition Be “Just” If Critical Mineral Extraction Exploits Workers and Pollutes Communities?

While the just transition is gestured at as a solution to the climate crisis, the extraction of critical minerals that underlies the transition often violates human rights and causes environmental damage, underscoring the limitations of the growth-focused economic model. A truly just transition is ultimately a regenerative one, of ecological resilience and reduced resource consumption. But until that can be achieved, green energy supply chains must be improved. Workers and others directly impacted by the energy transition’s thirst for critical minerals must be treated with dignity, agency, and autonomy.

Imagery from Kolwezi, DRC, which has been referred to as a disappearing city, because of the encroachment of cobalt mines on its urban area.
Attribution: Map Data: Google, Airbus Technologies, 2023.

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CAL se une a 35 organizaciones que firman una carta a CBP, destacando el fracaso de Central Romana para remediar el trabajo forzoso

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CAL Joins 35 Organizations signing open letter to CBP highlighting Central Romana’s failure to remediate forced labor

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A New Global Minimum Tax on Corporations and Human Rights Implications

A New Global Minimum Tax on Corporations and Human Rights Implications

This year, states will begin implementing a global minimum tax rate of fifteen percent on multinational corporations with more than €750 million (about $810 million) in revenues. If these tax reforms succeed in increasing tax revenues across the approximately 140 implementing countries as they intend, these additional funds could be used to advance the social and economic rights of their citizens, especially for the most vulnerable populations, including those whose rights have been abused by corporations historically. However, the coming tax reforms are still so riddled with gray areas regarding form and function that it is too early to call the initiative a victory in corporate accountability.  

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CAL and AfriLaw Document Widespread Forced Labor in the Nigerian Cocoa Sector

CAL and AfriLaw Document Widespread Forced Labor in the Nigerian Cocoa Sector

Across Nigeria, children, teenagers, and adults spend long days working on cocoa farms. Samuel* is one of these workers, a teenager who looks to be under eighteen – although he refused to tell us his age. Like the other workers on the farm, Samuel spends the day using a machete to chop down cocoa pods from trees, cut them open and remove the cocoa beans for drying and fermenting – dangerous work for anyone, but especially for children.

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Shell to face constitutional claims for violating the right to a clean environment

Shell to face constitutional claims for violating the right to a clean environment

On November 22, 2023, the United Kingdom’s (UK) High Court found that 13,000 Nigerian fisherman and farmers from the Ogale and Bille communities in the Niger Delta can bring landmark human rights claims against Shell for breaches of the communities’ right to a clean environment. Shell, a British-Dutch company, first began extracting oil from the biodiverse Niger Delta in the late 1950s under a joint venture it established with the Nigerian government just four years before Nigeria gained independence from Great Britain.

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Lundin Corporate Executives Face Prosecution for Aiding and Abetting War Crimes

Lundin Corporate Executives Face Prosecution for Aiding and Abetting War Crimes

In October 2023, a landmark war crimes trial began in Sweden: the first prosecution in Swedish history of corporate executives for aiding and abetting war crimes. The trial opened to intense public interest – likely to intensify as it unfolds over the next two years.  And for good reason. In many ways, this trial is legally unusual. The two corporate executives, Chairman Ian Lundin and former CEO Alex Schneiter, worked for the Swedish oil giant, Lundin Energy – previously known as Lundin Petroleum and Lundin Oil.

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Un año desde la prohibición del azúcar del Central Romana en mercado EEUU por trabajo forzoso

Un año desde la prohibición del azúcar del Central Romana en mercado EEUU por trabajo forzoso

Durante los 365 días desde que se bloqueó la entrada de su azúcar a los Estados Unidos por trabajo forzoso, el Central Romana ha optado por implementar sólo cambios superficiales para los cañeros y utilizar estrategias políticas en un aparente intento de hacer desaparecer la WRO.

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One year since Central Romana sugar banned from US market for forced labor

One year since Central Romana sugar banned from US market for forced labor

Over the 365 days since its sugar was blocked from entering the United States, Central Romana has chosen to implement only superficial changes for workers while pulling political strings in an apparent effort to make the import ban disappear. 

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New Report for Fair Trade Month: Certified Exploitation

New Report for Fair Trade Month: Certified Exploitation

Far from being “empowered” by distant shoppers, or “thriving in fair and safe conditions,” workers on Fair Trade USA and Equitable Food Initiative certified farms in the San Quintín Valley in Baja California, Mexico have likened themselves and their conditions to “slavery of the 21st century.” This post introduces the report, Certified Exploitation: How Equitable Food Initiative and Fair Trade USA Fail to Protect Farmworkers in the Mexican Produce Industry, and its key findings.

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Informe Nuevo para el mes de comercio justo: Explotación Certificada

Informe Nuevo para el mes de comercio justo: Explotación Certificada

Lejos de "empoderar" o hacer "prosperar en condiciones justas y seguras" a los trabajadores de las granjas certificadas por Fair Trade USA y Equitable Food Initiative, del valle de San Quintín, en Baja California, México, los trabajadores se han comparado a sí mismos y a las condiciones laborales bajo las que viven como unos "esclavos del siglo XXI". Este blog presenta los principales hallazgos del informe: Explotación Certificada: Equitable Food Initiative y Fair Trade USA y su Contribución al Abuso Laboral de los Trabajadores Agrícolas en la Industria Mexicana de Hortalizas. 

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CAL Sues over Sustainability Marketing for Açaí Likely Produced with Hazardous Child Labor

CAL Sues over Sustainability Marketing for Açaí Likely Produced with Hazardous Child Labor

Açaí-harvesting  communities in the Brazilian Amazon are demanding that companies like Sambazon address head-on the major risks associated with sourcing açaí, and that they restructure sourcing practices to maximize benefits to communities – not pretend that human rights risks are not present. Sambazon should put its money where its mouth is and make sustainability a reality in its supply chain – or, at least, ditch the misleading marketing. When businesses sell products that are likely made with hazardous child labor, they should not be able to paint a rose-colored image of sustainability to consumers. 

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Human Rights Organizations & U.S. Shrimp Producers file amicus brief supporting Cambodian victim-survivors of forced labor 

Human Rights Organizations & U.S. Shrimp Producers file amicus brief supporting Cambodian victim-survivors of forced labor 

On August 21, 2023, attorneys at Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL), Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF), and the Law Offices of John Burton filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of more than twenty human rights organizations and U.S. shrimp producers supporting the plaintiffs in Ratha v. Rubicon Resources, LLC. 

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CAL’s Consumer Protection Suit Against Rainforest Alliance Dismissed on Procedural Grounds; Case Proceeds Against Hershey

CAL’s Consumer Protection Suit Against Rainforest Alliance Dismissed on Procedural Grounds; Case Proceeds Against Hershey

On June 20, the Washington D.C. Superior Court dismissed Corporate Accountability Lab’s (CAL) consumer protection suit against The Rainforest Alliance, Inc. (Rainforest Alliance), an eco-social certifier, for lack of personal jurisdiction. In the same order, the judge refused to grant The Hershey Company’s (Hershey) motion to dismiss the case against them as co-defendants. This post discusses the mixed decision and the significance of the dismissal of claims against Rainforest Alliance. 

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