HARDLY a day goes by without some media story linking multinational corporations to human rights violations.

Be it child slavery in cocoa-producing African countries, the assassination of Colombian trade unionists, forced labour in Burma, or the suppression of demonstrations against international oil and mining company excesses, the list of corporate abuses is growing. Even when businesses are not directly involved in human rights violations, they are often their beneficiaries.

That is why Amnesty International is supporting a Parliamentary Bill tabled by Linda Perham MP requiring companies to publish reports on their social, environmental and economic impacts and to consult those affected. It also places a requirement on directors to consider social and environmental impacts when making business decisions.

The lack of public trust in business is a clear signal to our elected representatives that the accountability of transnational corporations is now as important an issue as the accountability of governments. Only when businesses are made to fully account for themselves will the roll-call of corporate abuses be brought to an end.

Phil Newsham

Group Secretary

(Bolton and Bury Amnesty International)