Corporations have carried out some of the worst violations of environmental and human rights in modern times. Just think of Union Carbide's responsibility for the Bhopal environmental catastrophe, and Shell's complicity in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other environmental activists in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult to hold corporations to account for these abuses. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.
Though it isn't easy, we can check the power of corporations—and citizens throughout the world are stepping up to do it. In 2004, Burmese villagers won a settlement against the Unocal Corporation, after suing Unocal for complicity in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape, summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration. In India, community groups and environmental activists convinced the state of Kerala to ban the production, distribution and sale of Coca Cola and Pepsi, whose soft drinks were found to contain dangerous levels of pesticides. Around the world, citizens are stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to international law.
Global Exchange believes that when corporations act like criminals, we have the right and power to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike accountable for abuses against the health and welfare of human beings and the environment. We actively campaign to get chocolate corporations like Nestle to stop using forced child labor on cocoa farms. We protest against the use of sweatshop labor by Wal-Mart and other multinational corporations. We insist that US automakers like Ford stop polluting the environment with their addiction to oil and huge greenhouse gas emissions. And we fight to get businesses to pursue alternative practices that preserve human dignity and promote economic sustainability through our Fair Trade and Buy Local Day campaigns.
