Every January since 2000, the Public Eye Award ‘honours’ the worst transnational corporation of the year as selected by the public through online voting. The Award’s ceremony is timely because it takes place during the World Economic Forum in Davos/Switzerland – where the world’s elite gather to discuss ways to deepen the architecture of impunity that enables TNCs to expand their exploitation of natural resources and marginalized communities across the world.
While there are too many TNCs whose operations have resulted in human rights violations and economic and ecological crimes every year, the Public Eye Awards successfully showcases corporate malfeasance on a global stage by putting the spotlight on emblematic cases that are representative of a widespread and systematic pattern. Previous winners of the Public Eye Award include the Brazilian mining company Vale, Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, Chevron and Glencore, some of whom were nominated by Campaign members. For the 2014 round, the Campaign itself was part of a group of organizations that nominated FIFA as the worst corporation of the year.
2015 marks the 15th anniversary of the Public Eye initiative in Davos and the Awards will look back on all of the winning cases from the past decade and a half. This retrospective will be a way of exploring what the “award-winning companies” have been up to since winning the award, especially regarding whether they have continued with systematic violations.
Two corporations that are a main focus of resistance struggles for Campaign members are nominated for this special installment of the Awards: Chevron, the U.S. oil company, won in 2006; and Glencore, the Anglo-Swiss mining giant, in 2008. Both of the companies have continued violating human rights and causing environmental destruction since ‘winning’ their awards. The Campaign members involved in the ongoing fights against these companies are UDAPT and Multiwatch. Both groups presented their struggles in detail during the Geneva Hearing of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal in June 2014.
Vote Chevron or Glencore in solidarity to the communities resisting their human rights violations and crimes!
And don’t forget to share widely so that these TNCs receive record-breaking votes!
For reasons to vote Chevron, click here:
http://publiceye.ch/case/chevron/
For reasons to vote Glencore, click here:
