"'It's a noble struggle': the human rights lawyers taking on big corporations", 22 Sep 2015

I have spent the last year speaking to lawyers working at a grassroots level all over the world to understand their experience of protecting the vulnerable from corporate abuse. It’s been part of the work to build a lawyers’ directory for the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which aims to help victims of abuse across the world find legal assistance.  From the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand to Russia, we have heard heart-wrenching stories of victims being denied justice as lawyers themselves become targets of abuse.  But we have also heard stories of unabated determination and powerful collaborations…Several lawyers stressed that people are generally unaware of their rights…making them unable to stake a claim in an effort to uphold their rights…In most cases, plaintiffs do not have the financial resources to pay a lawyer, and legal aid does not exist for corporate accountability cases…When a case makes it to the courts the process is often marred by dysfunctional judiciaries…These lawyers want companies to understand that profit-making shouldn’t come at the expense of human rights, a consideration that should be mainstreamed into their activities…