US firm to settle with villagers over abuse claims in Burma Unocal faced suit on pipeline project
By Paul Chavez, Associated Press | December 14, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- Unocal Corp. will settle a human rights case filed over a pipeline in Southeast Asia by paying villagers and funding improvements to living conditions along the project route, lawyers on both sides said yesterday.
The settlement will compensate 14 anonymous villagers who first sued Unocal in 1996, saying it should be held liable for enforced labor, murder, and rape allegedly carried out by Burma's military during construction of the $1.2 billion Yadana pipeline in Burma.
The lawsuits have been a key offensive by human rights activists to hold multinational corporations responsible in US courts for alleged abuses abroad.
As part of the pending settlement, Unocal, which is based in El Segundo, Calif., will provide funds to improve living conditions, healthcare, and education in the pipeline region.
''These initiatives will provide substantial assistance to people who may have suffered hardships in the region," attorneys said in the joint statement.
Unocal also will enhance its educational programs to reaffirm its commitment to human rights, the statement said.
Further details of the settlement, which is still being negotiated, were kept confidential.
The statement was released on behalf of Unocal's legal team and plaintiffs' attorneys from EarthRights International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Labor Rights Fund.
''We are completely delighted, and there is great satisfaction that the matter has been resolved in this way," said Terry Collingsworth, general counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based International Labor Rights Fund.
Unocal has denied that any human rights abuses occurred during the project.
The federal case relied on the obscure 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act that was originally enacted to prosecute pirates.
Since 1980, the statute has been used by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people killed or tortured under despotic foreign regimes. More recently, it has been invoked against multinational corporations, including ChevronTexaco over alleged abuses in Nigeria and ExxonMobil over alleged problems in Indonesia.
The pending Unocal settlement proves the statute can be used to take corporations to US courts in cases involving allegations of ''serious human rights abuses or complicity in serious human rights abuses," said David Weissbrodt, a University of Minnesota Law School professor and specialist on international human rights law.
The plaintiffs' case was bolstered by a separate US Supreme Court decision in June that allowed lawsuits under the act if there are alleged violations of international law, said Connie de la Vega, a law professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
''The fact that there was a ruling that these causes of action are legitimate is what encouraged the settlement," de la Vega said.
The full panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had been scheduled to hear arguments on the case yesterday in Pasadena, but the hearing was canceled at the request of both parties.
The federal court set a Feb. 1 deadline for both sides to file a joint status report on whether a settlement had been finalized.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who last year demanded Unocal prove it had implemented international standards to protect workers, in a statement yesterday urged the energy company to release details on the pending settlement as soon as possible.
''I made it very clear to Unocal over one year ago that we need a coherent explanation as to why they continue to operate in Burma, a country in which American companies are now banned from making new investments," Angelides said.
''Because the allegations of human rights violations -- which include murder, rape, and slave labor -- are so severe, nothing short of full transparency and a full commitment to human rights by Unocal will suffice."
Angelides sits on the boards of the nation's largest and third-largest public pension funds that together hold more than 2.1 million shares of Unocal stock.
The settlement would resolve claims against Unocal that were filed in federal and state courts.
Superior Court Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney earlier this year ordered a jury trial on the human rights abuses allegedly committed by the military.
Chaney previously ruled that Unocal subsidiaries that built the pipeline should have been sued instead of the parent company under a legal doctrine known as ''alter ego." She later ruled, however, that Unocal could be held liable under other corporate liability theories.
The military junta ruling Burma has been criticized by Western countries for its poor human rights record, including the detention of opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Diane Butler, an immigration lawyer in Seattle, said the case should serve as a warning to corporations doing business overseas.
''If there's one thing to take away here, it's that corporations need to be mindful that they must be accountable in their overseas operations because there are human rights groups that are watching them," Butler said.
''The world is watching, essentially."
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
