Pollution from Pesticides: How Transnational Chemical Corporations Violate Basic Human Rights
November 28, 2012 @ 9:00am (AKST)
The rights to health, life, livelihood, and food are internationally recognized basic human rights. A ruling against the world’s six largest pesticide companies (known as the “Big 6“) in a collective international human rights case marks an important step in holding corporations accountable for human rights abuses and protecting people from toxic trespass. Pesticide Action Network facilitated the presentation of 25 cases of human rights violations by transnational corporations before the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, an international people’s court. The court issued a strong final verdict pronouncing that “the corporations have violated basic human rights to health, life, livelihood, and food.” We will take a look at the significance of the court’s ruling, hear an update on United Nations actions to ban the world’s most dangerous chemicals, and discuss next steps for ensuring justice and the protection of health.
This call covered:
- The collective human rights case brought against the “Big 6” with Kathryn Gilje, Senior Organizer, Pesticide Action Network;
- Arctic Case prepared by Alaska Community Actions on Toxics (ACAT) with scientific evidence about the threat of persistent pesticides on the health of Indigenous Peoples with Vi Waghiyi, Environmental Health and Justice Director, ACAT;
- The case of the Lake Apopka farmworkers in Florida that were exposed generationally to organochlorine pesticides (POPs) implicated in mutations of alligators, death of water birds, and impacts on wildlife, with Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida.
Featured speakers
Kathryn Gilje, Senior Organizer, Pesticide Action Network (PAN). Prior to coming to PAN, Kathryn co-founded and co-directed Centro Campesino, a Midwest organization of migrant farmworkers and allies working for fair and healthy communities. She was senior associate with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, where she focused on policy and market support for sustainable agriculture and reforming U.S. farm policy. Kathryn has years of experience working on food, agriculture, policy and social justice issues in the U.S. and internationally. Kathryn speaks Spanish. Read more at Kathryn’s Blog.
Vi Waghiyi, Environmental Health and Justice Director, Alaska Community Action on Toxics.
Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator, Farmworker Association of Florida. Jeannie workers extensively with communities where former farmworkers suffer debilitating health impacts as a result of being forced to work in harsh conditions in close contact with dangerous pesticides over decades. She also works closely with the Lake Apopka communities, a largely African-American farmworker community, that has faced serious, ongoing exposure to pesticides.