Friends of the Earth Netherlands announced today that they will take Shell to court if it does not act on demands to stop its destruction of the climate.
The Friends of the Earth Netherlands case is the first climate lawsuit demanding a fossil fuel company acts on climate change, rather than seeking compensation. This ground-breaking case, if successful, would significantly limit Shell's investments in oil and gas globally by forcing them to comply with climate targets.
Today, the UN Human Rights Council discussed the report by the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) [1] regarding a binding treaty on business and human rights. Civil society organisations and countries, including the EU, supported the presentation and called for the continuation of the process. This means the 4th session of the IGWG will take place in October, as scheduled.
Friends of the Earth Europe, ActionAid and Global Witness have welcomed the EU's latest action on sustainable finance, but warned that tougher action is needed to ensure that Europe's financial sector includes robust regulatory safeguards.
***Update 18 April: The Milan court hearing scheduled today on the Nigerian Ikebiri community's case against oil giant ENI/NAOC has been postponed as, both parties sought the court's permission to suspend the case to allow them to explore further the possibility of an out-of-court settlement that could end the conflict. We expect that the company will now offer adequate compensation and clean up according to the community's legitimate grievance. The court has agreed to set the next hearing for October 23, 2018.***
Anne van Schaik, Friends of the Earth Europe’s corporate accountability campaigner, attended the recent week of negotiations in Geneva for a UN Treaty on business and human rights, and writes here about the outcomes and the unhelpful role of the European Union.
Monday 23 October will mark the start of the negotiations at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on a binding treaty for businesses in relation to human rights.
This is a historic opportunity to ensure that affected communities, Human and Environmental Rights Defenders and others who are victim of corporate abuse have enhanced access to justice.
Over the last few years, many issues have brought people into the streets in their thousands to demonstrate against the dodgy transatlantic trade deals TTIP and CETA. But perhaps the most contentious has been the issue of ‘corporate courts’ proposed for the frozen EU-US trade deal, TTIP – in trade jargon, known as an Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) mechanism.
The European Commission today released new proposals for how the European Union deals with globalization issues.
Paul de Clerck from Friends of the Earth Europe reacted to the 'Harnessing Globalisation' paper:
The seeds have been sown for an international agreement that could put human rights before corporate interests, according to Friends of the Earth Europe. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) met this week in Geneva to discuss a set of legally-binding rules for transnational corporations in relation to human rights known as "the UN treaty".
90,000 citizens called on the European Union to support a binding treaty on business and human rights today, and to participate in international discussion on the issue in Geneva on the 24th October.