Find out how you can support the International Monsanto Tribunal's investigation into crimes carried out by the most evil corporation in the world

Tuesday, January 19, 2016 by: Julie Wilson staff writer
Tags: Monsanto, The Hague, crimes tribunal

---

(NaturalNews) In 2011, the United Nations implemented a set of guidelines aimed at protecting individuals from human rights abuses committed by states and companies. Created by the UN Human Rights Council, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is intended to "prevent and address human rights abuses committed in business operations."

The framework states that "victims of corporate human rights abuses" are protected under the guidelines, and that under international human rights laws, the state is required to protect everyone within its territory from abuses committed by business enterprises.

These important guidelines may serve as a tool to hold corrupt, reckless corporations like Monsanto accountable for their crimes against humanity. The International Monsanto Tribunal, a diverse group of individuals consisting of scientists, lawyers, government officials, journalists, authors and activists, is trying to use the UN's human rights guidelines to hold Monsanto accountable for the human and environmental damage caused by its products.

"For an increasing number of people from around the world, Monsanto today is the symbol of industrial agriculture. This chemical-intensive form of production pollutes the environment, accelerates biodiversity loss, and massively contributes to global warming," states Monsanto-Tribunal.org.

"Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Monsanto, a US-based company, has developed a number of highly toxic products, which have permanently damaged the environment and caused illness or death for thousands of people."

Monsanto is responsible for the immense damage caused by the following products:

• PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), one of the twelve Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) that affect human and animal fertility;
• 2,4,5 T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a dioxin-containing component of the defoliant, Agent Orange, which was used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and continues to cause birth defects and cancer;
• Lasso, an herbicide that is now banned in Europe;
• and RoundUp, the most widely used herbicide in the world, and the source of the greatest health and environmental scandal in modern history - this toxic herbicide is used in combination with genetically modified (GM) RoundUp Ready seeds in large-scale monocultures, primarily to produce soybeans, maize and rapeseed for animal feed and biofuels.

"Monsanto promotes an agroindustrial model that contributes at least one third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; it is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide. This is a model that threatens peoples' food sovereignty by patenting seeds and privatizing life."

Critics say that "Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, by manipulating the press and media, etc.

"The history of Monsanto would thereby constitute a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet."

On Oct. 12–16, the Monsanto Tribunal, which will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, will use these allegations "to evaluate the damages caused by this transnational company," relying on the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

"It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002. The Tribunal shall also assess the conduct of Monsanto as regards the crime of ecocide, which it has been proposed to include in international criminal law.

"It shall examine whether the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court in force since 2002 should be reformed, in order to include the crime of ecocide and to allow for the prosecution of individual and legal entities suspected of having committed this crime," according to the organization's website.

To donate to the cause or to simply learn more about it, click here.

Sources:

Monsanto-Tribunal.org

Monsanto-Tribunal.org

Business-HumanRights.org

OHCHR.org^[PDF]

OHCHR.org^[PDF]