Legal CASES

Holding Corporations Accountable Worldwide

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EarthRights develops precedent-setting litigation and advances novel legal strategies.

Corporate Accountability

We expose environmental destruction, climate harms, and human rights abuses; challenging conduct, repairing harm, and preventing future abuses.
Climate

EarthRights ensures that fossil fuel companies take responsibility for their role in the climate crisis by representing local governments, shifting financial burdens away from communities, and promoting stronger oversight.
Indigenous Rights

We partner with Indigenous communities and networks, especially across Latin America and Southeast Asia, to uphold territorial stewardship, defend their rights to self-determination, and demand meaningful state action.
Environmental Defenders

EarthRights provides training, legal defense, and helps create and strengthen regional and international networks for defenders.

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La Fiscalía Provincial se abstuvo de impugnar la sentencia de segunda instancia que confirmaba la inocencia de todas las y los comuneros de Urinsaya.

Alcalde de Pasco demanda a minera Volcan para exigir justicia ambiental por contaminación en Cerro de Pasco

New Mexico’s Regulator Sued for Failure to Hold Oil and Gas Companies Accountable for Well Cleanup

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For over 30 years, we have been the nonprofit legal organization at the forefront of holding powerful corporations accountable for human rights and environmental abuses worldwide and to shift power back to the communities they harm.

Case Status

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Region

Legal Strategy

Sahu v. Union Carbide

Status: Closed

Issues: Corporate Accountability

SUMMARY In 1984, the world’s worst industrial disaster – a toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India – killed thousands of people. After the gas disaster, Union Carbide ceased operations and left India, leaving behind toxic waste that continues to pollute the groundwater and soil. To this day, the site…
Minis v. Thomson Safaris

Status: Closed

Issues: Corporate Accountability

SUMMARY When Maasai villagers in Tanzania accused a Massachusetts-based safari company of land-grabbing and violence, we filed an FLA action to obtain documents and testimony from the company. The Federal District Court in Massachusetts Granted our FLA Application and ordered the company to hand over relevant evidence and sit for depositions. The villagers in Tanzania…
Koh Kong Sugar Plantation

Status: Closed

Issues: EarthRights Defenders

SUMMARY In the mid-2000s in southwestern Cambodia, a violent land grab by sugar companies pushed 500 families off of their land, violating their rights to life, livelihoods and self-determination. In response, EarthRights and Cambodian CSO Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC) worked with the affected communities in Koh Kong to bring a landmark case to the National Human…
Don Sahong Dam

Status: Closed

Issues: Corporate Accountability, EarthRights Defenders

SUMMARY The Don Sahong dam is a hydropower project under construction on the mainstream of the Mekong River in southern Laos, less than two kilometers upstream from the border with Cambodia. Construction began in January 2016. If completed, the dam will have dire impacts on the livelihoods, food security and environment of communities both upstream…
Dawei Special Economic Zone

Issues: Corporate Accountability

SUMMARY Dawei Special Economic Zone is an industrial development project in southern Myanmar. It is one of three SEZs in Myanmar that are designed to attract businesses by lowering environmental regulations, offering tax breaks, and waving minimum wage requirements. If completed, the SEZ will include a deep-sea port, an oil refinery, a steel mill, fertilizer…