Making Corporations Respond to the Damage they Cause: Strategic Approaches to Compensation and Corporate Accountability

Transnational corporate projects often affect the living conditions of hundreds or thousands of people. They can bring positive changes into a region or country, for instance jobs and revenue as well as contributions to the community infrastructure, such as the building of roads, schools or hospitals. Sometimes, working conditions in transnational corporations are better than in small local businesses. Many negative impacts, however, have also come to light. The contamination of water and soil, loss of land, destruction of sacred sites, unemployment, security issues, displacement and the destruction of social and economic networks are some of the consequences which lead to the destruction of livelihoods and constitute grave violations of basic human rights. When communities undertake to organize and defend their rights against the negative impacts of business operations they often experience that there are inherent power imbalances between a community and a transnational corporation. Therefore, it is important to redress this imbalance by designing a strategy from as early a stage of the investment project on as possible, in order to prepare for the possible obstacles the community may face in any of its dealings with the company