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Written by CEDHA
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Monday, 07 July 2008 15:12 |
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 The Human Rights Council voted last month to extend the mandate for the Special Representative on Human Rights and Business, John Ruggie, a Harvard Professor at the Kennedy School of Government, to examine the relationship between Human Rights and Corporate Activity and to propose solutions on ways to better guarantee the State Duty to Protect, the Corporate Responsibility to Respect and Effective Access to Remedies for victims of violations perpetrated by corporations.
The UN Resolution makes eight specific requests to Ruggie, including: Â - To provide concrete and practical recommendations on the State Duty to protect;
- To elaborate the scope and provide guidance to business on the responsibility to respect;
- To make recommendations at all levels on effective remedies;
- To integrate gender issues and vulnerable groups (particularly children) in his work;
- To exchange and promote best practice in conjunction with the UN Global Compact;
- To work closely with the UN and other relevant international bodies;
- To promote the framework and continue to consult;
- To report annually to the UN
The mandate renewal reflects the ongoing commitment from the UN’s highest agencies and political leadership that the issue of human rights in the corporate world is still very much a top priority for the global institution, for States, and for the future of global governance talks relative to corporate activity. It also reflects a renewed belief that long-stagnant discussions between the corporate sector, States and civil society groups on the obligations of corporations to respect human rights, can and will advance.  Ruggie came into the debate several years earlier when previous negotiations between these sectors had all but collapsed, despite the issuance of the UN Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations and other business practice, advancement towards an effective human rights normative framework for corporations had all but vanished. One of the original creators of the UN Global Compact, Ruggie successfully got the discussions back on track, and over a multi-year period, produced the three-pronged strategy to focus energies and actions specifically the differentiated roles each actor plays in the corporate human rights discussion, which has been well received by most actors engaged in the debate.  Ruggie’s report to the UN at the closure of his last mandate, reviewed an extended series of issues in which corporations clearly influence human rights realization on the ground. He also outlined a series of flaws of existing mechanisms available to guide, control, and seek redress for corporate behavior relative to human rights, identifying specific strengths and weaknesses within States, and by corporations in upholding human rights.  Only a few weeks ago, following the decision to renew his mandate as Special Representative, Ruggie presented his findings before States at the OECD annual meetings in Paris, and received much attention and interest from all actors present in his call to revisit and review the role that States play in ensuring human rights compliance from the corporate sector.  The next three years will likely include an advancement of discussions from all engaged parties in the corporate accountability debate. Press Release: Centre for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA) |
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Written by Independent Online
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Friday, 27 June 2008 11:17 |
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Survivors from the Khulumani Support Group revealed horrific details of the torture they endured, saying the events still had a profound effect on them today, long after the official end of apartheid. |
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Written by The Observer
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Sunday, 18 May 2008 12:03 |
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Victims of South Africa's apartheid regime have won the right to seek compensation from some of the world's largest companies following a landmark decision in the New York Supreme Court last week. |
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Written by Bloomberg.com
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Friday, 16 May 2008 13:09 |
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For Chief Justice John Roberts, it's Hewlett-Packard. Stephen Breyer has Colgate-Palmolive, Bank of America, IBM, Nestle. Samuel Alito: Bristol-Myers Squibb and Exxon Mobil. Those companies are among 33 that went to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of killing a lawsuit against them. Victims of South Africa's brutal apartheid era are suing American companies they say aided racist repression there. |
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Written by AllAfrica.com
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 13:42 |
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HUMAN rights group Khulumani, which represents about 36000 South Africans seeking damages in the US courts from more than 50 major corporations that had dealings with the apartheid government, is understandably elated at this week's US Supreme Court ruling clearing the way for the $400bn lawsuits to proceed. |
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Written by Mail&Guardian
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 10:30 |
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From http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/royjobson/ Judge Korman was the lone dissenting voice against the appeal of the Khulumani lawsuit in October 2007. The appeal was lodged against the judgement dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims under the United States’ Alien Tort Claims Act. The Khulumani Lawsuit, on behalf of Khulumani Support Group and less than 100 named plaintiffs, charges 23 foreign corporations for their roles in aiding and abetting the apartheid regime and seeks to obtain damages for the named plaintiffs. Judge Korman indicated that the business of corporations is business, and they were merely conducting business (with the apartheid regime). Business unusual? |
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Written by Law.com
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Tuesday, 13 May 2008 12:56 |
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For want of a quorum, the Supreme Court on Monday allowed a controversial lawsuit brought by South African citizens to proceed against American and foreign corporations for their role in perpetuating apartheid. The companies, backed by the Bush administration and the South African government, had asked the high court to reverse a 2007 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said the suit could proceed under the Alien Tort Statute. |
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Written by Independent Online
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Tuesday, 13 May 2008 10:27 |
SA human rights groups on Tuesday welcomed a United States Supreme Court ruling that clears the way for the hearing of a lawsuit against multinationals that aided the apartheid government.
"This is a massive victory for the international human rights movement as a whole," Charles Abrahams, attorney for one of the claimants, the Khulumani victims' support group, told a media briefing in Cape Town.
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Written by Guardian.co.uk
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Monday, 12 May 2008 12:14 |
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for lawsuits to go forward by apartheid victims seeking damages exceeding $400 billion from more than 50 major corporations.With four justices recused from the case and therefore lacking a quorum, the high court issued a brief order simply affirming a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York. The appeals court had reinstated the lawsuits by the plaintiffs, who claim the companies violated international law by assisting the apartheid system in South Africa. |
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Written by Sowetan
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Tuesday, 25 March 2008 18:42 |
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The ANC and PAC buried any differences they might have when they honoured victims of the Sharpeville Massacre at the weekend. For the first time in many years the ANC and PAC shared the podium at the commemoration of the 69 people who died, and 180 who were injured, at the hands of apartheid policemen in Sharpeville, Vaal Triangle, on March 21 1960. They had been demonstrating against the pass laws outside the Sharpeville police station. The police opened fire on the unarmed citizens without warning. |
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Written by Inter Press Service
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Thursday, 13 March 2008 18:45 |
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JOHANNESBURG, Jun 7 (IPS) - Frustrated with what they see as increasing lawlessness in South Africa, leaders from political parties such as the Freedom Front Plus, the Christian Democratic Party and the Pro-Death Penalty Party are united in one cause: that capital punishment needs to be reinstated. Still, those who worked hard to abolish the death penalty 11 years ago say they will push with equal force to maintain the ban. They point to a decrease in the country's murder rate over the past five years, and say South Africa's brutal apartheid history shows that too often, innocent people can be hanged by the state. |
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Written by Associated Press
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Friday, 15 February 2008 20:22 |
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit that accuses more than 30 U.S. and European corporations of violating international law by assisting South Africa's former apartheid government. |
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Written by Associated Press
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Thursday, 22 November 2007 11:18 |
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 President Thabo Mbeki extended the possibility of pardons Wednesday to people convicted in political violence that persisted beyond apartheid. Mbeki told a joint session of parliament that people convicted of offenses they saw as political before June 1999 should be able to apply for a presidential pardon in a three-month window starting Jan. 15.
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Written by Mail&Guardian
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Friday, 02 November 2007 11:30 |
While the 24 multinational corporations facing litigation over their apartheid-era business activities in the country remain poker-faced, the South African government’s intervention on their behalf is appearing, increasingly, as the joker in the pack.
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Written by Business Day
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Monday, 22 October 2007 11:24 |
LAWYERS from some of the most blue-blooded companies in the world got a nasty shock this week when a US appeal court reversed a decision of a lower court which had dismissed the claims brought by 32700 apartheid victims. Gossip is that the finding was a real shock too for the hot-shot lawyers employed by the group of companies, which includes BP, ExxonMobil, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, UBS, IBM and General Motors , who apparently advised that the case did not stand a chance.
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Written by Mail&Guardian
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Monday, 22 October 2007 08:34 |
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 In 1976 Sindiswa Nunu, then a pupil at Gugulethu�s Isaac Mkhize Secondary, was shot in both legs by the police during the wave of student uprisings that swept the country. Detained and beaten several times in the ensuing years, a five-months pregnant Nunu suffered a miscarriage after a brutal beating in 1987 at Caledon Square Police Station. Today she is unemployed and lives in an unfinished house in Phillipi. She survives on grants she receives for two of her four children. She half jokingly says that apartheid is the reason she is single, because marriage would have demanded a more stable lifestyle.
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Written by Cape Times
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Sunday, 21 October 2007 23:00 |
 Apartheid victims have vowed to fight attempts by the South African government to block their reparations claims in a United States court. They are to seek expert legal opinion on whether they can take the government to court over what they believe are efforts to obstruct their rights to seek redress from foreign companies that they say propped up apartheid's repressive machinery.
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Written by Independent Online
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Sunday, 21 October 2007 12:18 |
Former Truth and Reconciliation commissioners have made the strongest appeal yet for a public debate on the process to resolve the unfinished business of apartheid. They say the legacy of the process has become bogged down in legal battles and obscure administrative machinations. The appeal was made in the same week government and multinational corporations indicated they would continue to oppose reparations claims by apartheid victims in a New York court against those they believed assisted the state to repress them.
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Written by Mail&Guardian
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Friday, 19 October 2007 10:32 |
The responsibility of addressing South Africa's apartheid past lies within the country itself and not the United States courts, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Brigitte Mabandla said on Friday. In a statement issued by her office, she reiterated the government's stance against the case brought by a group of apartheid victims in US courts. "We submit that another country's courts should not determine how ongoing political processes in South Africa should be resolved," Mabandla said.
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Written by Sapa-DPA
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Monday, 15 October 2007 08:14 |
Victims of South African apartheid plan to seek compensation from 22 international companies for helping maintain the repressive state regime, after a landmark US court ruling paved the way for such lawsuits last week, their lawyer told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
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khulumani: a support group. a social movement. a strong voice.