On Dec. 13, California-based Unocal Corporation announced that it had reached an out-of-court settlement in a landmark case alleging that the energy company was complicit in human rights abuses committed as part of the construction of a gas pipeline in Burma.

The case against Unocal was seen as a key test for human rights activists who want to hold multinationals responsible in U.S. courts for atrocities committed in other countries. About three dozen similar suits have been filed in the last 11 years against other major U.S. corporations, including Chevron Texaco Corp., Ford Motor Co. and IBM Corp.

The plaintiffs in Doe v. Unocal are villagers who lived near the pipeline. Some were forced to work on pipeline infrastructure by the military. The remainder suffered other egregious abuses including murder, rape and torture at the hands of soldiers providing “security” for the project.

The case was originally filed in federal court in 1996 under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) by a UUSC colleague organization, Earthrights International. It has traveled a tortuous route through the U.S. and California court systems over the past nine years.

ATCA is 215-year-old federal law that allows victims of human rights abuses to hold U.S.-based multinational corporations accountable. The law has been is under attack by the U.S. business lobby as well as the Bush administration.

UUSC constituents have responded to many action alerts in defense of human rights in Burma and the abuses in which Unocal now agrees it was complicit as part of construction of the gas pipeline. The defense of ATCA was presented by UUSC as an Action of Immediate Witness and was overwhelmingly endorsed by the annual 2004 UUA General Assembly (GA). It also had the strong support of the GA Youth Caucus, which spoke in favor of the action.

The U.S. Council for International Business, which represents multinational companies, responded to the agreement to settle by saying that Unocal's decision did not diminish its opposition to what it called “inappropriate” cases filed under ATCA  

Though this is a wonderful victory, we must remain vigilant. UUSC will continue to stand for human rights and against the abuses of multinational corporations by continuing to oppose overturning the Alien Tort Claims Act.

Posted Dec. 20, 2004