Monsanto Tribunal

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The Monsanto Tribunal ( English International Monsanto Tribunal ) was a civil society initiative. It took place from October 14-16, 2016 in The Hague as a symbolic trial, led by publicly appointed judges, to investigate whether the business of the US company Monsanto was compatible with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights . The initiator was an international citizens' initiative . Victims, farmers and scientists from five continents were heard about harm to people and the environment caused by Monsanto's products and business practices. Monsanto declined to participate.

organization

The Monsanto Tribunal was created by an international civil society initiative, the Monsanto Tribunal Foundation , whose statutes went into effect on June 4, 2015, to legally investigate certain activities of the Monsanto company. The main organizers included Vandana Shiva , Corinne Lepage , Marie-Monique Robin , Olivier De Schutter , Gilles-Éric Séralini , Hans Rudolf Herren . Official supporters included a. Greenpeace and BUND .

A crowdfunding campaign was started on December 3, 2015 in order to finance the costs of preparation and implementation.

Procedure

The model for the Monsanto Tribunal is the Russell Tribunal , which became known as the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, and was founded in 1966 by Bertrand Russell and Ken Coates and others involved.

The tribunal took place on October 15 and 16, 2016 at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague , Netherlands . 30 witnesses and experts from five continents were heard.

The proceedings were led by five lawyers or professional judges from Argentina , Belgium , Canada , Mexico and Senegal , who had the task of drawing up an expert opinion from the results of the proceedings. It was chaired by Françoise Tulkens (Belgium), who was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights for fourteen years . Reviewers were: Dior Fall Sow (Senegal), Jorge Fernández Souza (Mexico), Eleonora Lamm (Argentina), Steven Shrybman (Canada). The hearings and the taking of evidence, which were more like a judicial process, were the basis for the experts to answer six predetermined, legally relevant questions. The answer was given as a legal opinion on the basis of existing international law, and the experts also made recommendations for future legal norms.

Françoise Tulkens told Le Monde :

“We will not pronounce a judgment. We will give an opinion. More precisely, we will check whether Monsanto's activities comply with the legal requirements as they exist in the main UN legal instruments. It is an educational tribunal that I hope will have an impact on international human rights law. "

- Tulkens

Participation from Monsanto

Monsanto was invited to attend the tribunal by letter dated June 6, 2016. Monsanto did not respond directly to the letter and the proceedings took place in the absence of a Monsanto representative. An open letter was published by Monsanto , which was used as evidence in the proceedings and rejected the conclusions of the Hague Tribunal in advance and described them as incorrect.

Problem

Parts of the products manufactured by Monsanto are controversial and the business practices , lawsuits and lobbying are sometimes viewed critically. Controversial products include, for example, genetically modified seeds from crops , the herbicides " Roundup " (active ingredient glyphosate ) and "Lasso" (active ingredient alachlor ). An example of a different business practice using national differences is that in Europe the documents for the approval process for glyphosate cannot be viewed due to alleged trade secrets, whereas in the USA this inspection is possible with reference to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Questions to the Tribunal

Six questions were asked of the tribunal for lawyers to express their legal conclusions after taking the evidence:

  1. Does Monsanto have the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment through its activities in accordance with international human rights norms (Res. 25/21 of the Human Rights Council of April 15, 2014) with regard to the responsibility of which companies within the framework of the Human Rights Council Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights adopted in its resolution 17/4 of June 16, 2011?
  2. Does Monsanto have the right to food through its activities in accordance with Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in accordance with Article 24.2 (c) and (e) and 27.3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in accordance with Article 25 (f ) and 28.1 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women with regard to the responsibility of companies under the guiding principles on business and human rights adopted by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011?
  3. Does Monsanto have the right to the highest attainable health according to Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the right of the child to the highest attainable health according to Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child through its activities with regard to the responsibility which companies are subject to under the guiding principles on business and human rights adopted by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011?
  4. Does Monsanto have the essential freedom for scientific research under Article 15 (3) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with regard to the responsibility of which companies under the guiding principles on business and human rights adopted by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011?
  5. Did Monsanto make itself an accomplice in a war crime under Article 8 (2) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court by supplying materials to the United States Army as part of Operation Ranch Hand launched in Vietnam in 1962 ?
  6. If the past and present activities of the Monsanto company constitute ecocide, a crime which consists in causing serious damage to the environment or in the destruction of the same, in order to destroy large-scale parishes or ecosystem services on which certain human communities depend, affect in devastating and permanent ways?

Result

On April 18, 2017, the five judges of the Monsanto Tribunal issued a sixty-page opinion. Monsanto has been accused of crimes against humanity and the environment, including marketing toxic products that have killed thousands of people, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), glyphosate (part of herbicides like Roundup ) or 2,4,5- Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (a component of the defoliant Agent Orange , which was sprayed from US military aircraft during the Vietnam War). "Monsanto has practices that have serious effects on the environment," the judges said. Activities that they believe undermine the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. The right to food and health is also violated, including because Monsanto has harmed soil, water and the environment in general. The court also referred to the "aggressive marketing of GMO seeds", which limits these rights "by forcing farmers to adopt cultivation methods that do not respect the practices of traditional crops". The five judges also condemned Monsanto's practices of undermining the freedom of scientific research and "freedom of expression and access to information".

The court did not come to any final conclusions on questions 5 and 6. For ecocide were the judges when this offense would exist in international criminal law, "the activities of Monsanto could possibly represent the crime ecocide". "No relevant evidence" has been presented regarding Monsanto's complicity in war crimes in the Vietnam War, but it cannot be ruled out because of the destruction of the environment and the damage that the Vietnamese people have suffered, as Monsanto has "given the means to wage war in Vietnam ”and knew its harmful effects on health and the environment.

Recommendations were made that

The result of the tribunal is not legally binding and there can be no compulsion to implement the results.

criticism

The NZZ criticized the fact that in the Monsanto Tribunal only "witnesses for the prosecution" appeared who took a position against Monsanto. Monsanto has voluntarily decided not to participate, but no “ public defender ” or similar was added to the company in the proceedings . Not only Monsanto is on the “pillory”, but all industrial agriculture. The procedure was described by the FAZ as a "masked show trial " as it was in the Russell tribunals. Also by Forbes the tribunal as a "fake" process was called, whose judgment've been from the start. In an official summary of the report, the company's name was spelled with a dollar sign (“MON $ ANTO”). The administration of the tribunal used Monsanto as a symbolic scapegoat to spread misinformation about the modern food system. The taking of evidence was one-sided and relied largely on theatrics, including skits, performances and short films.

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk , Renate Künast explained about the symbolic tribunal against Monsanto: "If governments and criminal law do not help to sanction damage to people or the environment in any way, then one chooses a pictorial language here."

documentary

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ksenia Gerasimova: NGO Discourses in the Debate on Genetically Modified Crops , Routledge (Explorations in Environmental Studies), London 2017, ISBN 978-1138223899 , Chapter: Alterglobalist campaigns against Monsanto , p. 112
  2. ↑ Jost Maurin: How “bad” is Monsanto really? , TAZ, October 14, 2016
  3. ^ As , International Monsanto Tribunal, last accessed October 21, 2017.
  4. ^ Rémi Barroux: "Le Roundup face à ses juges": un réquisitoire accablant contre Monsanto , Le Monde, October 16, 2017
  5. ^ Results , International Monsanto Tribunal, last accessed October 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ Au "Tribunal Monsant" of militants veulent mettre l'environnement au cœur du droit international , Le Monde, 17 October 2016
  7. ↑ Summary of the report , International Monsanto Tribunal, last accessed on October 21, 2017
  8. ^ Opinion of the Monsanto Tribunal of 18. June 2017, p. 9 f.
  9. ^ As , International Monsanto Tribunal, last accessed on October 21, 2017 and The Hague: Monsanto Tribunal is trying , Finanzblatt, January 8, 2016.
  10. ↑ civil tribunal accused Monsanto of "ecocide" , the press , April 19 2017th
  11. ^ Rudolf Balmer, Protest against Monsanto - criminal offense "eco-murder" , taz.de, December 4, 2015.
  12. ↑ Heike Buchter, Christiane Grefe and Jens Tönnesmann: Bayer and the mistrust of the world , Die Zeit , October 13, 2016.
  13. ↑ The Hague: Tribunal brings Monsanto to trial , Finanzblatt, January 8, 2016 and Sergio Aiolfi, Little Helpful Kesseltreiben , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 14, 2016.
  14. ↑ TV tip: The Monsanto Tribunal , Administrative Judges Association website , October 20, 2017.
  15. ^ As , International Monsanto Tribunal, last accessed October 21, 2017.
  16. ↑ Un tribunal informel accuse Monsanto , Le Figaro, April 18, 2017
  17. ↑ a b c Jost Maurin: Tribunal: Monsanto is really bad. In: TAZ. April 20, 2017. Retrieved November 16, 2017 .
  18. ^ A b Tribunal Monsanto: la firme américaine reconnue coupable d'atteinte aux droits humains , Le Monde, April 19, 2017
  19. ↑ Sergio Aiolfi: Little Helpful Kesseltreiben , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 14, 2016.
  20. ↑ Jan Grossarth: The fairy tale of poisoning the world , Frankfurter Allgemeine , September 14, 2016.
  21. ↑ Kavin Senapathy: Monsanto Found Guilty In Fake Trial That Distracted From Real problem. In: Forbes . April 21, 2017, accessed November 16, 2017 .
  22. ↑ International Monsanto Tribunal (ed.): Summary of the advisory opinion of the International Monsanto Tribunal . The Hague April 18, 2017 ( monsantotribunal.org [PDF; 346 kB ]).
  23. ^ Symbolic Tribunal in The Hague. Monsanto's products "caused sickness and death" . Renate Künast in conversation with Jasper Barenberg, Deutschlandfunk, October 14, 2016