Corporations on Trial
21/05/2009
Source : Al Jazeera
In a special five-part series People & Power charts the rapidly growing number of lawsuits being brought against multi-national corporations.
War crimes, conspiracy, corruption and payments to terrorists are just some of the serious charges that have forced some of the world’s largest companies to hire high-profile defence lawyers to defend their name in cases often brought by plaintiffs who are barely literate.
Corporations on Trial reveals a growing anxiety about the power and influence of big business.
Today many multinational corporations have annual revenues greater than some countries’ national budgets; governments are increasingly held to ransom by their economic power.
Around the world, ordinary people are asking how many more times their interests should be sacrificed for corporate greed and shareholder profit.
Asking how, in other words, can the world’s multinationals be kept in check.
See also : Interview of Juliana Ruhfus on the use and abuse of corporate power
Dumping ground
It is the largest class action in British history. Brought by the human rights lawyer, Martyn Day, on behalf of 30,000 Ivorians against the world’s third largest independent oil trader Trafigura.
The suit alleges that the company neglected its duty of care when disposing of a tonnes of toxic - material that was illicitly dumped on Abidjan’s streets with appalling consequences.
Juliana Ruhfus investigates the origins and reaction of the case.
Dumping ground can be seen on Al Jazeera from Wednesday May 20.
A Case of Global Proportions
Steve Susman alleges it is “one of the largest conspiracies in the world,” and as a result the lawyer has filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil and 23 other energy companies.
The organisations are alleged to have funded “false science” and orchestrated a massive publication relations and propaganda campaign, designed to mislead the public about the dangers of global warming.
A former defence lawyer for tobacco giant Phillip Morris, Susman says he has now become one of the “good guys” by joining the Native American villagers of Kivalina in Alaska to prove that the disappearance of their village into the sea is man-made – and that the energy giants are to blame.
A Case of Global Proportions can be seen on Al Jazeera from Wednesday May 27.
Courtroom Intifada
Residents of the small West Bank village of Bil’in have been campaigning for years to regain land lost to the Israeli separation wall and an encroaching Jewish settlement through a policy of “legal resistance”.
But as an ealier victory in the Israeli Supreme Court continues to be ignored, the villagers, helped by an Israeli legal maverick have now a filed a case against the international construction companies who are building the settlements.
They claim they have violated international human rights law by building on occupied land.
Courtroom Intifada can be seen on Al Jazeera from Wednesday June 3.
Chiquita - Between Life and Law
Following a ruling by a US federal court that fined the organisation $25million for funding a terrorist organisation, banana giant Chiquita is now facing a number of new lawsuits.
After being found guilty of illicit payments to the Colombian paramilitary groups an array of plaintiffs now want compensation for who they say are the victims of the company’s actions and are demanding that Chiquita’s directors are extradited from the US to stand trial in Colombia.
As former paramilitaries begin to speak out, the truth emerges about a dark chapter of American corporate history, where big business took sides in a civil war and profits mattered more than lives.
Chiquita - Between Life and Law can be seen on Al Jazeera from Wednesday June 10.
Volcano Lusi - Muddy Justice
Three years ago mud volcano Lusi erupted in Indonesia, swallowing up 12 villages and displacing at least 40,000 people.
International scientists and Indonesian activists allege that it was a man-made disaster, and that a gas-drilling operation owned by the country’s minister for Social Welfare was the cause of the eruption.
But lawyers are facing an uphill battle to gain compensation for the victim and as the courts continue to rule against their case, rumours of corruption abound.
Volcano Lusi - Muddy Justice can be seen on Al Jazeera from Wednesday June 17.
