Corporate Accountability Lab unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.
RECENT UPDATES
CBP LIFTS IMPORT BAN AGAINST CENTRAL ROMANA SUGAR DESPITE EVIDENCE OF CONTINUED FORCED LABOR
A month after CBP lifted its import ban on sugar from Central Romana Corporation, sugarcane workers in the Dominican Republic report that labor conditions are deteriorating fast. CAL, which has monitored forced labor at Central Romana since 2021, warns that the same abuses that prompted the 2022 ban—now lifted—persist and are getting worse.
CAL believes the ban was lifted due to political pressure from the administration rather than a response to any meaningful forced labor remediation having taken place. The evidence the CAL team has gathered in recent months indicates that conditions for canecutters at Central Romana still amount to forced labor. We call on CBP to reinstate the Withhold Release Order immediately.
Press release also available in Spanish.
What Price for the King of Oils?
Exploitation and Abuse in doTERRA’s Frankincense Supply Chain
November 1, 2024
In 2020, Horn of Africa Charity Organisation (HOACO) began an inquiry into wage theft in the frankincense industry in Somaliland and harm to rare frankincense forests, and engaged Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) in 2021. The trail led to a U.S.-based essential oil company and allegations indicative of a far-reaching and diverse criminal enterprise, including theft, egregious labor violations, bribery, sex trafficking, and rape or assault of hundreds of women and girls.
On November 1, 2024, US Customs and Border Protection issued a Withhold Release Order against frankincense and frankincense-based products imported into the United States from Somalia by doTERRA’s supplier, Asli Maydi Exports & Imports Company. This WRO comes after CBP found five indicators of forced labor within this supply chain: deception, withholding of wages, abusive working conditions, threats and intimidation, and physical violence.
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our work
Research
We study the laws that govern corporate behavior and identify how and why such laws fail to hold corporations accountable for the human rights violations and environmental harms occurring across their supply chains.
Legal Design
We design strategic interventions into global supply chains to better protect human rights and the environment through novel litigation strategy and new forms of worker empowerment.
Collaboration
We collaborate with lawyers, law school clinics, other corporate accountability NGOs, and workers to workshop our designs, coordinate strategy, and implement our strategic interventions.