|
Earth
Summit >
News > This is the latest news story
Greenpeace calls on governments to make corporations
more accountable
 4
June 2002, Bali, Indonesia: As government representatives this
morning entered the last preparatory meeting before the August Earth
Summit, or World Summit on Sustainability (WSSD), they were met
with an avenue of posters depicting hotspots of environmental crime.
Greenpeace urged governments to commit to an international
agreement on corporate accountability and liability to stem the
tide of corporate environment abuses.
"Governments have allowed, and continue to
allow, big business to wreak havoc. You only have to look at the
aftermath of the Bhopal
chemical disaster 18 years ago. Nothing much has been done by
the corporation responsible to provide justice, rehabilitation and
compensation to the victims of the disaster, or clean-up of the
site which is still heavily contaminated and littered with stockpiles
of hazardous wastes," said Marcelo Furtado from Greenpeace.
Greenpeace is asking governments to take up the
Bhopal
Principles on Corporate Accountability and Liability, a comprehensive
set of principles to ensure that corporations protect human rights,
food sovereignty and promote clean and sustainable development.
The Principles are a direct reference to the Bhopal
disaster in 1984, the world's worst chemical disaster which destroyed
the lives of thousands of people who were exposed to lethal gases,
which leaked out of a Union Carbide chemical plant.  The
call is supported by a Greenpeace report which compiles cases
of corporate crime from various industrial sectors, including the
chemical, forest, mining, genetic engineering, nuclear and oil industries,
from different parts of the world .
The cases demonstrate how transnational corporations
have learned to downplay damage and elude criminal and/or civil
liability. They also illustrate the need for governments, who are
ultimately responsible for public welfare, to force corporations
to uphold the law and become more accountable to the public.
"These crimes clearly point towards
the need for greater control, monitoring and accountability of corporate
activity in an increasingly globalised economy. To curb these corporate
abuses, governments must act globally to ensure that corporations
are held liable for their actions, particularly in the developing
world where transnational companies take advantage of less regulated
environments. By turning a blind eye to this issue in the WSSD,
governments are surrendering the welfare of their publics to the
mercy of corporate criminals,"said Furtado.
More information
- Corporate Crimes: The
need for an international instrument on corporate accountability
and liability
- Read some of the case
studies.
 Download
the full report with all 37 case studies.
- The Rainbow Warrior is in the Baltic sea to protect
it from polluting corporate criminals. Check
out the website.
Media contacts
Marcelo Furtado in Bali on +62 8 1797 100
52
|
