The decades long scream of agony of a poisoned people and a poisoned earth for accountability on the part of one of the most vicious and manipulative of Transnational Corporates (TNCs) has been vindicated. In October 2016, the Monsanto Tribunal (MT) set up in the Hague listened to the testimony, evidence and eyewitness reports of farmers, scientists, activists, intellectuals, thinkers and citizens hailing from many countries on the misery visited upon this peopled earth by Monsanto. On the 18th of April 2017 it delivered its advisory opinion, damning this company for ever and damning every apologist for the insane mangling of science to manufacture consent and deter dissent of its planet murdering malpractices and the genocide and ecocide it has perpetrated in the name of profit.
The Tribunal was one of the best
convened in recent times and comprised of Judge Dior Fall Sow of Senegal
who is a consultant to the International Criminal Court and a former
Advocate General at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
Judge Jorge Fernández who is from Souza, Mexico and who is currently
Judge at the Court of Administrative Litigation of Mexico City, Judge Eleonora
Lamm of Argentina who is the Human rights Director for the Supreme Court
of Justice of Mendoza with a doctorate in bioethics and law, Judge Steven
Shrybman of Canada who is a partner in the law firm of Goldblatt Partners
LLP and practices international trade and public interest law in Toronto and
Ottawa and Judge Françoise Tulkens of Belgium, who has a Doctorate in
Law, a Master’s degree in Criminology and is a former judge in the European
Court of Human Rights. They took a full six months to carefully and thoroughly
study the evidence before they came to their conclusions and let us be very
clear here: this cannot be overturned by the Monsanto henchmen through their
usual method of using manipulated science to turn black into white, untruth
into truth, bad into good. They can no longer act like the bully who is finally
whipped and cry foul when all it has done over years is foul up the world and
its people.
In all, the tribunal was asked to
rule on six questions. For the purpose of this article, I will concentrate on
the two key areas relevant to its title: That of scientific fraud and that of
ecocide.
Monsanto guilty of
manipulation and misrepresenting science:
First, let us take a look at
question 4 concerning the alleged infringement on the freedom indispensable for
scientific research, as guaranteed by Article 15(3) of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as the freedoms of
thought and expression guaranteed in Article 19 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.
According to the summary report
of the findings of the Tribunal, The “freedom indispensable for scientific
research” closely relates to freedom of thought and expression, as well as the
right to information and is therefore key to safeguarding other fundamental
rights, such as the right to health, food, water and a healthy environment.
This freedom engenders the requirement to ensure that scientific researchers
are able to express themselves freely and are protected when acting as whistle-blowers.
Some of Monsanto's practices mentioned in the testimonies of agronomists and
molecular biologists have resulted in court convictions for the company. Among
those practices are: illegal GMO plantations; resorting to studies misrepresenting
the negative impacts of Roundup by limiting the analysis to glyphosate only
while the product is a combination of substances; massive campaigns aiming
at discrediting the results of independent scientific studies.
In response to Question 4, the
Tribunal concludes that Monsanto's conduct is negatively affecting the right to
freedom indispensable for scientific research. Conduct such as intimidation,
discrediting independent scientific research when it raises serious questions
about the protection of the environment and public health, suborning false
research reports, putting pressure on governments are transgressing the freedom
indispensable for scientific research. This abuse is exacerbated by
exposure to health and accompanying environmental risks, which deprive society
the possibility to safeguard fundamental rights. Taking direct measures to
silence scientists or attempting to discredit their work constitutes conduct
that abuses the right to freedom indispensable for scientific research and the
right to freedom of expression.
Monsanto guilty of the crime
of Ecocide:
Next let us look at question 6
which asked the Tribunal if the activities of Monsanto could constitute a crime
of ecocide, understood as causing serious damage or destroying the environment,
so as to significantly and durably alter the global commons or ecosystem
services upon which certain human groups rely.
According to the summary report
of the findings of the Tribunal, developments in international environmental
law confirms the increased awareness of how environmental harm negatively affects
the fundamental values of society. Preserving dignity for present and future
generations and the integrity of ecosystems is an idea that has gained traction
in the international community. As an evidence of these developments, and
according to the Policy Paper on Case Selection and Prioritization from
September 2016, the Prosecutor of the ICC wants to give particular
consideration to Rome Statute crimes involving the illegal dispossession of
land or the destruction of the environment. However, despite the development of
many instruments to protect the environment, a gap remains between legal
commitments and the reality of environmental protection. The Tribunal
assesses that international law should now precisely and clearly assert the
protection of the environment and the crime of ecocide. The Tribunal
concludes that if such a crime of ecocide were recognized in international
criminal law, the activities of Monsanto could possibly constitute a crime of
ecocide. Several of the company’s activities may fall within this infraction,
such as the manufacture and supply of glyphosate-based herbicides to Colombia
in the context of its plan for aerial application on coca crops, which
negatively impacted the environment and the health of local populations; the large-scale
use of dangerous agrochemicals in industrial agriculture; and the engineering,
production, introduction and release of genetically engineered crops. Severe
contamination of plant diversity, soils and waters would also fall within the
qualification of ecocide. Finally, the introduction of persistent organic
pollutants such as PCB into the environment causing widespread, long-lasting
and severe environmental harm and affecting the right of the future generations
could fall within the qualification of ecocide as well.
Finally, and crucially, the
Tribunal, in its advisory opinion, insists on the widening gap between
international human rights law and corporate accountability and calls for two
urgent actions.
The first is to establish the
primacy of international human rights and environment law over the plethora of
laws designed to protect investors in the frame of the World Trade
Organization. They made it very clear that the almost draconian laws of the WTO
tend to undermine the capacity of nations to maintain policies, laws and
practices protecting human and environmental rights and that action should be
taken to reduce the widening gap between these laws and international trade and
investment law. If this is not done, they opine, key questions will be
resolved by private tribunals operating entirely outside the UN framework.
The second is a call to hold
non-state actors responsible within international law and consider that it is
time that multinational enterprises are subjects of law that can be sued in the
case of infringement of fundamental rights. The Tribunal clearly identifies and
denounces a severe disparity between the rights of multinational corporations
and their obligations and encourages authoritative bodies to protect the
effectiveness of international human rights and environmental law against the
conduct of multinational corporations.
We are moving into a sustainable
world and such things as multinational corporations and especially companies
such as Monsanto do not belong to that world. They did horrible things in the
industrial era that have no place in the sustainable era. The world’s people
have had enough of these monsters. This is the first salvo against such
organizations and they had be crystal clear about the following: They are done.
They are dusted. Their time is up.
