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The Canadian Government is protecting Talisman... again
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| “Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver and our people are being sacrificed in exchange for barrels of oil.” |
-- Catholic Bishops Conference
of Sudan, September 2000. |
In the oilfields of Sudan, civilians are often killed and raped, their villages burnt to the ground. They have been caught in a decades-old war for the proceeds of oil, part of the wider war between the central government and the provinces that raged on in southern Sudan for decades, and now ravages Darfur.
In 2001, the Presbyterian Church of Sudan and number of Sudanese individuals filed suit in U.S. federal court against a Canadian company, Talisman Energy, for the company's apparent part in war crimes committed in Sudan. The plaintiffs alleged that the oil company was complicit in the Sudanese Government’s human rights abuses against Sudanese civilians living in the area of Talisman’s oil concession in southern Sudan, and that these abuses amounted to genocide.
In September 2006, after considerable lobbying by both the Canadian and U.S. governments, the court granted Talisman's motion to dismiss. (See KAIROS’ op-ed on this issue.)
While the plaintiffs are appealing the decision, the Canadian government continues to defend Talisman. On May 8th, 2007, lawyers representing the Canadian government submitted an Amicus Curiae brief to the court arguing, among other things, that the U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction over a Canadian corporation operating in Sudan. The government claims that the court “should not exercise jurisdiction extraterritorially in the present case given the absence of a genuine and effective link to the United States.” They also argue that the case “would have detrimental foreign policy ramifications can could damage Canada's foreign policy efforts towards human rights promotion.”
As KAIROS argued in 2005 during the original trial, the Canadian government should be distancing itself from Talisman, while searching for constructive ways to ensure that all Canadian corporate activities support human rights abroad. Instead, the Canadian government has effectively obstructed US courts.
In 2000, after the release of a government-commissioned report
linking Talisman's investment to the conflict in southern Sudan,
then-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, claimed that he
did not have the “legislative authority to sanction the company.”
In 2007, nothing has changed in Canada, and the victims of human
rights abuses are still waiting for action. In response a broad
based campaign has begun calling for the government to enact binding
human rights and environmental standards on Canadian companies operating
overseas. KAIROS is a member of this campaign: see more at
http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/corporate/mining/index.asp
To find out more, please contact John Lewis, Program Coordinator
for International Human Rights by email
or 416-463-5312 ext. 224.
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