This online information hub on corporate legal accountability for human rights abuses highlights significant lawsuits in all parts of the world.  It is a gateway into each of the lawsuits – users can search the cases by industry, company, country, and issues involved.  It also presents brief commentaries about corporate legal accountability by leading experts.  The full press release from the launch of the portal (29 Oct 2008) is available here [PDF].

Aims

Our aim is to create a resource that is useful to both lawyers and non-lawyers.  The portal draws increased international attention to the important legal work being done by corporate accountability advocates.  It also raises public awareness about corporate legal accountability and provides valuable information for victims, advocates, NGOs, business people and others. 

Lawsuits profiled

The portal highlights over 45 leading corporate accountability lawsuits, and we add new lawsuit profiles every week.  For the United States, each relevant Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) lawsuit will be profiled.  Internationally, we plan to profile many lawsuits from outside North America and Western Europe, including cases from Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey.  The lawsuits we feature will meet one or more of the following criteria:

• cases that set a precedent;
• leading cases that succeeded;
• leading cases that failed (demonstrating the need for strengthening legal accountability); 
• cases that allege particularly serious abuses, or complicity with a government’s human rights violations;  
• cases that include use of international standards by advocates in their arguments.
   

To search the cases by industry, company, country and issues involved, see the portal homepage.

Summary profiles

Each lawsuit’s section on our site has a summary profile at the top, providing a concise synopsis of the case with links to key commentaries, pleadings by both sides, and decisions.  We will endeavour to keep each profile up-to-date.

Commentaries

The portal also presents brief, specially-written practical commentaries about corporate legal accountability by a group of experts, each with their own perspective.  Mary Robinson has written a special introduction to the commentaries. 

For further information

For further details about this project, or if you have suggestions of lawsuits that should be featured on our website or lawyers we should contact, please get in touch with both:

1. Sif Thorgeirsson, Project Manager
   thorgeirsson@business-humanrights.org
   mobile phone in UK: +44-7747-053-682
   Skype: sifthorgeirsson 
    
    and
    
2. Greg Regaignon, Head of Research:
   regaignon@business-humanrights.org
   phone in USA: +1-909-626-0260
   Skype: gregaignon

This Corporate Legal Accountability project was initially made possible by a grant from JEHT Foundation. It is currently funded by Sigrid Rausing Trust, until February 2010.