Consortium of organizations launches project to deliver justice to people adversely affected by multinationals

The ‘Mind the Gap’ platform exposes the corporate strategies used to avoid punishment and reparations

Photo taken by the independent photographer Isis Medeiros in January 2019 at the disaster in Brumadinho.

A consortium of organizations from different countries, led by SOMO (Center for Research on Multinational Corporations), launched on Friday, July 10, a joint research and advocacy project with the intention of achieving justice and remedy for people and communities that are victims of abuses caused by multinational corporations.

In the Mind the Gap project, the organizations have listed the practices used by corporations to avoid responsibility for environmental and human rights violations committed in their production chains. 

The project is the result of an ambitious international research project and, according to its organizers, it underscores the urgent need to close the governance gaps that sustain a global system of corporate impunity.

“Hiding behind complex supply chains, undermining unions and disseminating distorted information are just some of the ways that corporations try to avoid responsibility for their violations,” said Mariëtte van Huijstee, senior researcher at SOMO. 

“With Mind the Gap, for the first time we have systematically listed and analyzed the most common corporate strategies used to avoid punishment and reparations for victims,” she added.

The platform of the project was created to serve as a tool for civil society and the international community, which can add complaints and negative cases to the database.

Five main strategies

Upon its launch, the project identified five main strategies used by companies to avoid responsibility. The consortium of organizations explain that these strategies manifest themselves in a wide array of actions that obstruct justice and distort the facts with the intention, at all costs, of avoiding reparations for the affected communities.

 

1. Constructing deniability – This happens when companies hide behind complex supply chains, outsource high-risk activities to subcontractors or decide to suddenly shut down subsidiaries, obscuring their role in any harms caused.
2. Avoiding liability through judicial strategies – The use of judicial strategies to ward off public scrutiny and respond to allegations from communities, workers and human rights defenders.
3. Distracting and obfuscating stakeholders – Confusing stakeholders by spreading misleading information, manipulating scientific research or abusing certification standards.
4. Undermining defenders and communities – Silencing critics by attacking and criminalizing human rights defenders, dividing communities with bribes and undermining unions.
5. Utilizing State power – This refers to the behavior by companies that leverage their power with governments to obtain favorable treatment, security and impunity.

According to the consortium, these strategies combine to sustain a system in which international business remains unaccountable for the environmental and human rights damage it produces, while victims continue to draw the short straw.

Emblematic cases

Among the many emblematic case studies featured on the Mind the Gap project website is the dam collapse in Brumadinho, which occurred in the state of Minas Gerais in January 2019 and killed more than 270 people and seriously polluted the environment. 

The disaster is cited as a clear example of the wide prevalence of these corporate strategies to avoid liability and punishment. 

“The mining company Vale assured time and again that the dam met all the safety requirements, but Brazilian prosecutors have collected evidence that the company sought certification while knowing about the severe safety risks,” said Júlia Mello Neiva, coordinator of the Development and Socioenvironmental Rights program at Conectas.

Another well-documented example that illustrates how companies leverage their power with governments to obtain favorable treatment is HeidelbergCement, a German multinational that is active in the Occupied Palestinian Territory through a local subsidiary.

“This company can only operate its stone quarry in the West Bank with the backing of the Israeli occupation authorities,” said Wesam Ahmad, of the organization Al-Haq, a Mind the Gap partner. “HeidelbergCement directly profits from and contributes to Israel’s illegal occupation, settlement construction and systemic human rights abuses, while enjoying the protection of the Israeli authorities and shielding its headquarters from possible liability at the international level,” he concluded.