Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 from 1 pm to 3 pm, Room XXII, United Nations Building, Geneva

Description :

There has been an increase in the practices of European transnational corporations that violate human rights in Latin America - a fact that is undeniable and for which there are many examples and considerable evidence.

The European Union shares responsibility in these violations for the role it has played in the creation of a legal-political framework that allows TNCs to act with impunity. Faced with the absence of legal mechanisms that effectively oblige transnational corporations to respect the rights of the people, social movements have turned to other mechanisms to denounce and judge the violation of their rights, namely the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT). The movements have also developed proposals to advance towards establishing an international normative framework to dismantle the power of TNCs. The PPT sessions in Vienna (2006) and Lima (2008) on Neoliberal Policies and European Transnationals in Latin America and the Caribbean have contributed not only to increasing the visibility of the denunciations and documenting the cases, but also to the strengthening of links of solidarity between movements in Europe and Latin America.

In this event, the experience of the Permanent People’s Tribunal and the analyses resulting from this experience will be presented. There will also be a debate on proposals on alternatives that have been elaborated from social movements’ perspectives.

Objectives :

1. Demonstrate European TNCs’ responsibility in the cases of human rights violations denounced before the Permanent People’s Tribunal.

2. Illustrate the complicity of the European Union, IFIs and European governments in the human rights violations committed by TNCs.

3. Present the experience and the results of the Permanent People’s Tribunal.

4. Discuss concrete proposals on how to put an end to TNCs impunity and to the asymmetries that exist in the international legal system.

Panelists :

Antoni Pigrau,Professor of International Public Law and International Relations at the Universidad Rovira i Virgili de Catalunya and member of the Permanent People’s Tribunal.

Alejandro Teitelbaum, Lawyer specializing in human rights and international economic relations, and Former Representative of the American Association of Jurists to the United Nations

Erika Gonzalez, Researcher for Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL)

Jésus Carrión Rabasco, Economist and Researcher of the Observatorio de la Deuda en la Globalización (ODG)

Moderator : Brid Brennan, Fellow of the Transnational Institute (TNI)

Co-Organizer : Bi-regional Europe-Latin America and the Caribbean Enlazando Alternativas Network and the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

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DESCARGUE EL REPORTE "Beneficios a costa de los pueblos y de los derechos humanos Corporaciones Transnacionales Europeas en América Latina y el Caribe". Este informe fue preparado para la Consulta de la ONU sobre la puesta en práctica del marco sobre empresas y derechos humanos elaborado por el Representante Especial del Secretario General sobre la cuestión de los derechos humanos y las empresas transnacionales y otras empresas comerciales, que será celebrada en Ginebra el 5 y 6 de octubre 2009.