Human Rights

Whether or not women will be better off after the war against Afghanistan is an open question. But the claim that the United States is some kind of liberator is contradicted by the role that U.S.-led corporate globalization plays in creating the conditions that enable fundamentalists like the Taliban to gain power in the first place. Read More

Environmentalism in Mexico has a dim future unless young people are taught to be more aware of their world, according to Rodolfo Montiel, an environmentalist from the country who was released from prison late last year. Read More

The money you spend in Bloomingdales on goods that are from Burma benefits Burma's military dictators and means more suffering for the 50 million. To make matters worse, worker rights are not enforced in Burma and health and safety standards are virtually nonexistent. Read More

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft shopped the Bush administration's anti-terrorism agenda to the nation's regional telecom providers today, urging them to press ahead with reforms that would make it easier for the government to intercept terrorist communications. Read More

Here's an urgent appeal from indigenous leaders and environmentalists in New Caledonia, who are fighting for TIME to prevent irreversible destruction of ancient forests and contamination of one of the world's most magnificent coral reefs. Read More

New York (February 27, 2002) -- The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to dismiss two lawsuits charging Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Shell Transport and Trading Company, p.l.c. (Royal Dutch/Shell) and the former head of its Nigerian subsidiary, Brian Anderson, with human rights violations against activists Ken Saro-Wiwa and John Kpuinen. Read More

The International Labor Rights Fund has filed suit in US federal court on behalf of 10,000 Ecuadorian peasant farmers and Amazonian Indians charging DynCorp with torture, infanticide and wrongful death for its role in the aerial spraying of highly toxic pesticides in the Amazonian jungle, along the border of Ecuador and Colombia. Read More

A powerhouse team of African-American legal and academic stars is getting ready to sue companies it says profited from slavery before 1865. Initially, the group's aim is to use lawsuits and the threat of litigation to squeeze apologies and financial settlements from dozens of corporations. Ultimately, it hopes to gain momentum for a national apology and a massive reparations payout by Congress to African-Americans. Read More

The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) and the Free Burma Coalition (FBC) today announced a campaign of protest over the fact that parts of the 2002 Winter Olympic Torchbearer uniforms were made in Burma. Read More

Enron's collapse may have begun with the kind of misadventures it engaged in half a world away among the quiet coastal villages of Dabhol, India. Read More