Ruth Rosselson looks at five previous Corporate Watch features to see whether any progress has been made.
Bechtel & Bolivia
In August 2003 we focused on Bechtel Corp and reported on the lawsuit it had filed against the Bolivian government.
The company had taken over the public water system of the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia and hiked water rates almost overnight. Bechtel was forced to leave after a concerted campaign by the people of the city and retaliated by attempting to sue the Bolivian government for loss of income.
We reported that the sum that the government was being sued for ($25 million) was the amount Bechtel earned in half a day. In Bolivia, the same sum could employ 3,000 rural doctors for a year or hook up 125,000 familes to a public water system.
In January 2006, six years after the campaign against Bechtel began, the company formally abandoned its lawsuit. Campaigners are finally rejoicing, and have attributed the decision to concerted consumer pressure and public protests.
The case had been taken to the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, a trade court that operates behind closed doors. More than 300 organisations from 43 countries joined a petition to the World Bank, demanding that the case be opened “to public scrutiny and participation”.[1 ]
Last year, the company tired of the negative publicity and began negotiating a deal to drop the case, for a token payment of two bolivianos (around 20p). Bechtel’s surrender has been described as ‘historic’.
Striking electricians and Carillion
In March 2004, we reported on a court case between striking electricians and Carillion. Four Manchester electricians were fired because they were trying to set up a branch of the TGWU. They were sacked by the subcontractor, but claimed that responsibility for working conditions and standards rested with Carillion.
n August 2004, 16 months after initially going on strike, the electricians won their case for unfair dismissal on grounds of their trade union membership. However, another seven who had walked out in solidarity were judged to have been lawfully dismissed for taking unofficial industrial action.[3]
Shell in Nigeria
In November 2005, we reported that Shell was being sued in the Nigerian courts by communities across the Niger Delta. Campaigners had argued that Shell had failed to end its gas flaring in the area, contributing to environmental degradation.
In November 2005, Shell was ordered to immediately cease gas flaring following complaints from seven villages. In the court in Benin City, lawyers for the Nigerian communities argued that flaring was a “ ...a gross violation of [the plaintiffs’] fundamental right to human life and dignity...”.[2] Shell has appealed against this decision and has continued gas flaring.
Meanwhile, in February, a case brought by the Ijaw people of the Delta region was finally resolved, finding Shell guilty of environmental pollution and ordering it and its partners to pay $1.5bn compensation to the Ijaw people. Shell, however, will appeal. Last year, the company made a net profit of $22.94 billion.
Ilisu Dam
Back in 2000, we reported on the proposed Ilisu dam in Turkey which, if built, would have flooded the ancient Kurdish town of Hasankeyf. Companies involved at the time were Sulzer Hydro and ABB Power Generation, with consortium members of sub-contractors including Balfour Beatty.
In 2002, campaigners won an important victory when a major campaign forced Balfour Beatty and others to withdraw. However, the dam plans have been resurrected and the 12,000 year-old city of Hasankeyf is under threat again, as are the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.
Siemens is the company under the spotlight as it has bought out Austrian company VA Tech, one of the companies contracted by the Turkish government to build the dam. Campaigners report that Siemens plans to go ahead with the dam, starting work as early as summer 2006, despite plenty of local opposition.[4]
Siemens has a wide range of products which could be avoided by consumers as part of a campaign, including waching machines and mobile phones. It is also jointly behind the Bosch Siemens brand of fridges, freezers and microwaves and Neff branded goods.
Or you could write to: Klaus Kleinfeld, Chief Executive, Siemens AG, Wittelsbacherplatz 2, D-80333 Munich, Germany
For more information visit: www.ilisu.org.uk
Monsanto & GM
In August 1997, we reported on agrochemical giant Monsanto and on its genetically modified “Roundup Ready Soya Bean”. The beans had been developed to be resistant to Roundup, the company’s own herbicide and the beans were, at the time, mixed in with non-GM soya, making consumer avoidance impossible.
We advised consumers to buy organic soya or avoid soya altogether. The public debate was still in its infancy and the mainstream food companies had yet to develop policies on the inclusion of GM ingredients in their products. Since then, the campaign has grown in momentum with consumers rejecting GM products en masse.
However, the GM war has yet to be won. Although we may have succeeded in rejecting GM ingredients from most foods, we are still importing GM animal feed. This means consumers buying animal products including milk and cheese and indeed meat itself, could be inadvertently supporting GM industry as the animals may have been fed on a GM diet. Friends of the Earth continues to urge consumers to put pressure on the major supermarkets, as although they have committed to phasing out GM animal feed, none have yet phased out the feed completely.
Nearly 9 years on, Monsanto sits at the top of the tree as the world’s biggest seed company. It is responsible for 90% of all GM traits used around the world in crops including soya, maize, cotton and tobacco. In its efforts to maximise its profits any way that it can, it has filed cases for patent infringement in Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain.[5]
It has also focused efforts on Argentina where nearly all soy production is GM and almost all based on genetic technology developed by Monsanto and leased to local manufacturers. As Monsanto does not own the patent for the Roundup seeds in Argentina, Argentinian seed companies were able to undercut the company with generic Roundup seeds.
This meant that Monsanto was not receiving royalties for those seeds. In order to continue receiving revenue from its GM technology, Monsanto now intends to claim its royalties on the crop itself and is threatening legal action if exporters decline to pay up.[5] If Monsanto’s cases are successful, campaigners argue that it could then begin to claim part-ownership rights on any products containing its Roundup Ready gene.
Campaigners are also concerned that Monsanto is trying to remove a UN moratorium in place against ‘genetic use restriction,’ also known as ‘terminator’, technologies.[6] This technology effectively means that plants are genetically altered to become infertile, so that farmers are unable to save and use seeds from one season to the next.
In 1999, Monsanto made a promise not to commercialise GM terminator technology, although campaigners are worried that the future will see the company take a u-turn on this.[6] This is all the more likely given the recent DEFRA decision to abandon its moratorium on these technologies and make decisions on a case-by-case basis. It’s likely that the UN moratorium will move in the same direction. A recent WTO ruling has also stated that Europe’s moratorium on GMOs has led to trade rules being broken.
Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) has turned the spotlight back on Monsanto with a new report published in January 2006. This report claims that the company aims to genetically modify all of Europe’s maize over the next four years.[7]
It criticises Monsanto, arguing that GM technology has failed to deliver benefits for consumers or the environment and hasn’t played any role in solving hunger and poverty. The report points out that independent research consistently shows that GM crops have led to an increase rather than a decrease in pesticide use. It also claims that Monsanto has done its best over the past decade to weaken European laws.[7]
Take Action
- Favour organic animal products as these will be guaranteed to be from animals fed on a non-GM diet.
- Ask supermarkets to keep their GM promises
- Read the FOE report. You can download it here or call 0808 800 1111
- Back the Soil Association’s campaign against a possible EU ruling that would allow organic food to contain up to 0.9% of ‘accidental’ GM contamination. See
www.soilassociation.org
References
1 Democracy Centre website, www.democracyctr.org/ 19/1/06
2 BBC news online http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4556662.stm 24/12/05 “Contempt Case for Shell over Gas”
3 Labournet UK www.labournet.net 5/08/04
4 www.ilisu.org.uk/ viewed on 3/3/06
5 Guardian, 22/2/06 Seeds of dispute
6 www.banterminator.org viewed 1/3/06
7 Friends of the Earth International “Monsanto, Who Benefits from GM crops”, Jan 06
From Ethical Consumer, Issue 100, May/June 2006