Posted on: Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Unocal to settle suit alleging rights abuses

By Paul Chavez
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Unocal Corp. will settle a human rights case filed over a pipeline in Southeast Asia by paying villagers and funding improvements to living conditions along the project route, lawyers on both sides said yesterday.

The settlement will compensate 14 anonymous villagers who first sued Unocal in 1996, claiming it should be held liable for enforced labor, murder and rape allegedly carried out by the Myanmar military during construction of the $1.2 billion Yadana pipeline in the country, also known as Burma.

The suits have been a key offensive by human-rights activists to hold multinational corporations responsible in U.S. courts for alleged abuses abroad.

As part of the pending settlement, El Segundo, Calif.-based Unocal will provide funds to improve living conditions, healthcare and education in the pipeline region.

"These initiatives will provide substantial assistance to people who may have suffered hardships in the region," attorneys said in the joint statement.

Unocal also will enhance its educational programs to reaffirm its commitment to human rights, the statement said.

Further details of the settlement, which is still being negotiated, were kept confidential.

The statement was released on behalf of Unocal's legal team and plaintiffs' attorneys from EarthRights International, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Labor Rights Fund.

Unocal has denied that any human-rights abuses occurred during the project.

The federal case relied on the obscure 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act that was originally enacted to prosecute pirates.

Since 1980, the statute has been used by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people killed or tortured under despotic foreign regimes.

More recently, it has been invoked against multinational corporations, including ChevronTexaco over alleged abuses in Nigeria and Exxon Mobil over alleged problems in Indonesia.