Weekly Update - 1 February 2017

The Verge; Reuters; Fortune; Guardian (UK), Oxfam (USA)

• tech companies' CEOs take lead in denouncing immigration orders - Verge says
  Airbnb, Google, Lyft, Netflix, Salesforce among strongest responses, calls Adobe & Facebook’s “weak”; Oracle silent
• Amazon, Expedia & Microsoft join lawsuit against travel ban
• most CEOs in strategy forum advising Trump have been silent, including its chair Steven Schwarzman of private equity fund Blackstone
• Starbucks CEO announces company will hire 10,000 refugees worldwide

(photo credit: Flickr)

Phil Bloomer, Executive Director, Business Human Rights Resource Centre, in Ethical Corporation

Senator Cardin & former Sen. Lugar; Human Rights Watch; Publish What You Pay US; Amnesty Intl. USA; Extractive Industry Initiative

• US & intl. civil society denounces move, says regulations needed for transparency of extractive industry, to hold govts. accountable for how revenues are spent & fight corruption
• most non-US companies already disclose same information in Europe & elsewhere - would create uneven playing field

Sleeping Giants; Daily News & Analysis; Prince George Citizen; Associated Press

Leigh Day; Guardian (UK); Amnesty International

• Amnesty Intl. says ruling "gives green light for corporations to profit from abuses"
• plaintiffs say they will appeal

Reuters

• summary profile of lawsuit available

Guardian (UK)

Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment

• participants in the Leadership Group on Responsible Recruitment include: Coca-Cola, HP, Unilever, Institute for Human Rights and Business & others

Maka Angola; Global Voices

• with video of torture
• we also invited Endiama to respond, but it did not

Bloomberg; Intl. Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) & Lawyers for Human Rights (So. Africa)

The Citizen & The East African

Reuters; Business Vancouver; Court of Appeal of British Columbia; The Canadian Centre for International Justice; Tahoe Resources

• summary profile of lawsuit available
• in statement, company says it still believes case should be heard in Guatemala

Frontline Defenders; OpenDemocracy

• Professor Miller Dussan faces two criminal charges over his support for movement opposed to dam due to harms to local people
• we invited Enel to respond; response provided

• we invited Glencore to respond, response provided

Thomson Reuters Foundation; Intl. Trade Union Confederation

Rappler 

Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting Standards (FIHRRST); Bangkok Post

Chunichi Shimbum

• critics note deaths of people working over 80 hours overtime per month are presumed to be work-related

S.H.A.N., in Burma News International

Centre for Law and Democracy & Bank Information Center

Nigerian Tribune

Guardian (UK)

Daily News (Egypt)

• we invited IFFCO to respond; it did not

Western Sahara Resource Watch

• we invited Vigeo Eiris to respond; response provided
• we also invited Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy and Masen to respond; we will indicate whether the companies respond in a future Update

• Swiss Global Compact Dialogue 2017 on responsible business (2 Feb, Bern)
• Alternative Mining Indaba (6-8 Feb, Cape Town)
• Land rights, risk & conflict in Africa (9 Feb, Dakar)
• Conference on responsible business (14 Feb, New Delhi)
• Launch of Global Witness report on Honduras (15 Feb, London)

• Assent Compliance (Corporate Social Responsibility Analyst)
• Foundation for investing in communities (Finance & Office Manager)
• Intl. Labour Rights Forum (Corporate Accountability Program Coordinator)
• Global Reporting Initiative (2 posts: Deputy Director & Manager, Sector Programme)
• CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (Senior Advisor - Responsible Business)