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

Combating Forced Labor

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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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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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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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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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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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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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So-called Sustainability programs are failing cocoa farmers and their families: How Nestlé and Mondelez greenwash – and labor wash – their chocolate products

So-called Sustainability programs are failing cocoa farmers and their families: How Nestlé and Mondelez greenwash – and labor wash – their chocolate products

The West African cocoa industry, where two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown, is notorious for its human rights abuses. From hazardous child labor to child trafficking to the poverty wages that farmers earn, little of the cocoa supply chain in West Africa is “fair” or “sustainable.” Yet over the past decade, certification schemes – such as Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade International, and Fairtrade USA – and so-called sustainability programs – like Mondelez’s Cocoa Life, Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan, Mars’ Cocoa for Generations, and Hershey’s Cocoa For Good – have proliferated.

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CAL Provides New Information to CBP on Child Trafficking and Forced Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector

CAL Provides New Information to CBP on Child Trafficking and Forced Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector

On February 14, 2023, Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) submitted information to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under Section 307 of the Tariff Act documenting instances of forced child labor in the Ivorian cocoa industry. This petition comes exactly three years after we first provided CBP with information documenting child trafficking and forced labor on the Ivorian cocoa farms that source to chocolate brands in the United States.

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Certification Schemes: Why Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance and Others are Failing Workers and Consumers

Certification Schemes: Why Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance and Others are Failing Workers and Consumers

These days, if you go into a grocery store, there are numerous labels on food products touting how ethical and sustainable the product is. Yet these certification labels often misrepresent the labor and environmental standards used to produce these products. Certification schemes, such as Fairtrade International, were initially developed to provide workers – often farm workers in rural areas – with increased income, better working conditions, and a steady stream of buyers. Moreover, they signaled to consumers that the products were produced sustainably, without exploiting workers, children, or the environment. 

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Trabajadores en la República Dominicana apoyan la prohibición de importar azúcar a EEUU

Trabajadores en la República Dominicana apoyan la prohibición de importar azúcar a EEUU

 La semana pasada, más de 200 cañeros protestaron ante el Ministerio de Trabajo de la República Dominicana, pidiendo que se actúe sobre la situación de los derechos humanos en Central Romana a la luz de la WRO. Coordinador sindical Jesús Núñez, afirmó: "Estamos de acuerdo con las sanciones, pero no se pueden levantar sin respuesta a nuestras demandas". 

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Workers in Dominican Republic support US ban on sugar imports

Workers in Dominican Republic support US ban on sugar imports

Last week, more than 200 sugarcane workers protested before the Dominican Republic’s Ministerio de Trabajo (Ministry of Labor), calling for action on the human rights situation at Central Romana Corporation Limited in light of the US import ban on the company’s raw sugar and sugar products. Union Coordinator Jesús Nuñez said: “We’re on board with the sanctions, but they can’t be lifted without response to our demands.”

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The Next World Cup Doesn’t have to be a Human Rights Disaster

The Next World Cup Doesn’t have to be a Human Rights Disaster

This post discusses human rights abuses associated with the 2022 World Cup that are currently under global scrutiny. We look briefly at these abuses and some of the systems that drive them. We then suggest basic steps that FIFA and other world sporting event organizers should take to address human rights abuses behind mega sporting events.  

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LA CBP EMITE UNA ORDEN DE RETENCIÓN CONTRA LA EMPRESA AZUCARERA DOMINICANA CENTRAL ROMANA, PROVEEDORA DE DOMINO SUGAR Y FLORIDA CRYSTALS

LA CBP EMITE UNA ORDEN DE RETENCIÓN CONTRA LA EMPRESA AZUCARERA DOMINICANA CENTRAL ROMANA, PROVEEDORA DE DOMINO SUGAR Y FLORIDA CRYSTALS

El 23 de noviembre de 2022, la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP, por sus siglas en inglés) de los Estados Unidos emitió una Orden de Retención (WRO, por sus siglas en inglés) contra su producción de azúcar y productos azucareros producidos por Central Romana Corporation, Ltd (Central Romana) en la República Dominicana. Recibimos esta WRO y urgimos al CBP a que se asegure de que Central Romana adopte y a haga cumplir medidas efectivas para remediar las atroces condiciones de trabajo y el trabajo forzoso que tienen lugar en su propiedad y en las condiciones que la empresa creó.

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CBP Issues Withhold Release Order Against Dominican Sugar Company Central Romana, Supplier to Domino Sugar and Florida Crystals

CBP Issues Withhold Release Order Against Dominican Sugar Company Central Romana, Supplier to Domino Sugar and Florida Crystals

On November 23, 2022, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) against all sugar and sugar products produced by Central Romana Corporation Limited (Central Romana) in the Dominican Republic. We welcome this WRO and urge CBP to ensure that Central Romana takes real steps to remediate the egregious working conditions and forced labor taking place on its property and under conditions the company created.

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