A dam collapses in Brazil killing hundreds and causing untold pollution. 21 million people work as forced labourers—many in global supply chains.  A South African activist is murdered while defending his communities’ lands.  Time and again, Australian corporations are implicated in human rights abuses and environmental disasters across the world. Yet most of these crimes go unpunished, with no access to justice for victims at home or overseas. It is not just a few bad apples. As the Human Rights Law Centre has documented, ongoing serious human rights abuses feature in the overseas operations of many prominent Australian-based multinationals. They can evade responsibility for human rights and environmental abuses by operating between different national jurisdictions, taking advantage of corruption in local legal systems, and leveraging the fact that many are richer and more powerful than the states that seek to regulate them. Continue reading

Australian companies dominate African mining. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade counts 175 ASX-listed companies operating in 35 African countries. Professional services company PwC reckons there are more than 200, and that “a golden age of Australia-Africa relations has begun”.   Continue reading

  Shell is one of the biggest climate polluters in the world. This transnational company has known about the severity of climate change and the impacts of oil and gas drilling for decades, but has not only misled the public on the issue, it continues drilling for fossil fuels. Continue reading

  Friends of the Earth Netherlands takes the first step in legal action against Shell to stop the destruction of the climate. This ground-breaking case, if successful, would significantly limit Shell's investments in oil and gas globally by requiring them to comply with global climate targets. Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands said ‘Shell is among the ten biggest climate polluters worldwide. It has known for over 30 years that it is causing dangerous climate change, but continues to extract oil and gas and invests billions in the search and development of new fossil fuels.’   Continue reading

Apple routinely disregards humans and nature in it's push for bigger and bigger profits. A couple of years ago suicide nets were installed to catch burnt out workers who thought their only escape from their production lines was suicide. Continue reading