Katie Redford
Encyclopedia
Katharine Redford, Esq. is a human rights lawyer and activist who is credited with spearheading a movement to hold international companies accountable for overseas abuse in their home court jurisdictions in the Western world, and in doing so, opened up new possibilities in human rights law. She is the co-Founder and US Office Director of EarthRights International(ERI), a non-profit group of activists, organizers, and lawyers with expertise in human rights, the environment and corporate and government accountability.
Redford is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law
(UVA), where she received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights and Public Service. She is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar and served as counsel to plaintiffs in ERI's landmark case Doe v. Unocal
. Redford received an Echoing Green Fellowship
in 1995 to establish ERI, and since that time has split her time between ERI's Thailand
and US offices. In addition to working on ERI's litigation and teaching at the EarthRights Schools, Redford currently serves as an adjunct professor of law at both UVA and the Washington College of Law
at American University
. She has published on various issues associated with human rights and corporate accountability, in addition to co-authoring ERI reports such as In Our Court, Shock and Law, and Total Denial Continues. In 2006, Redford was selected as an Ashoka Global Fellow
.
In 1994 Redford turned in a law school paper suggesting the use of an ancient federal statute to fight human rights abuses in Burma, The Alien Torts Claims Act. The act dates back to 1789, when George Washington
signed the fledgling nation's first Judiciary Act
. An obscure provision in it appears to give foreigners the right to sue in federal court over violations of international law. Though the act has been used to sue individuals, it has never been used successfully to sue a corporation for human rights abuses. Her professor gave her an A but warned that such a case would never occur. That student paper, "Using the Alien Torts Claims Act: Unocal v. Burma," became the basis of the groundbreaking case John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al. In March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas. Unocal eventually settled the case out of court.
In 1995 Redford received seed money from Echoing Green
to launch EarthRights International (ERI) with Tyler Giannini and Ka Hsaw Wa
. ERI began its work with offices in Thailand
and Washington, D.C.
, as a nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of human rights and the environment—which it defines as “earth rights”—by documenting abuses, mounting legal actions against the perpetrators of earth rights abuses, providing training for grassroots and community leaders, and launching advocacy campaigns.
ERI brought the case of John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al., to both state and federal courts in California
. Most legal experts believed the case would never fly and at first it appeared they may be right. But seeing possibilities where the experts could not, Redford persevered throughout the protracted, ten-year-long legal battle. ERI had their case dismissed in 2000, fought back and won by appeal, the right to continue.
As the years passed, the case gained traction. Redford trudged forward, putting in countless hours of legal work, fundraising and research, and building coalitions with likeminded organizations such as Center for Constitutional Rights
. After several years of fighting an uphill battle without losing hope, the rewards finally came, in 2004. Unocal agreed to settle the lawsuit. It was the first time in history that a major multinational corporation had settled a case of this type for monetary damages.
In the landmark settlement, the company agreed to compensate the Burmese villagers who sued the firm for complicity in forced labor, rape, and murder. By combining human rights law and environmental law, ERI had come up with a new and untested strategy that succeeded where older solutions had failed. Their story was documented in the 2006 documentary film Total Denial
.
Equally importantly, the Unocal case set a strong legal precedent. As a result of ERI’s efforts, a series of rulings in the California Federal Court established that a corporation can indeed be held liable in U.S. courts for encouraging human rights violations by a foreign government. This put corporations on notice and forced them to consider their actions abroad.
Unocal attempted to recover the damages from its insurer. The insurer did not pay, but instead reviewed its policies to ensure that it would not be liable to cover damages for murder, rape, and torture. Then banks began reviewing their liability for funding the projects. Thus, liability for abuse becomes an important business issue, not merely the preoccupation of a few activists.
Today Redford and her team at ERI use the Unocal case as a model to fight corporate misbehavior. Working in partnership with other legal organizations and private lawyers, they seeks to remedy abuses of earth rights—all over the world. For instance, Redford and ERI are currently working with the victims of human rights abuses associated with the activities of the oil company Chevron
in Nigeria
to fight the case
against Chevron
in federal court in San Francisco.
. Redford attended Colgate University
in rural upstate New York where she was a member of the swimming and diving teams. She found spending six hours a day in the water too much and later quit and began playing rugby, a Division I sport at Colgate.
After graduating from college in 1990, Redford signed on with the WorldTeach
program and found herself teaching English in a village on the Thai-Burmese border.
On her summer break she visited a Thai refugee camp and lived with a family who had fled the Burmese military dictatorship. There she taught English in a bamboo hut. Along the border, bombs would explode from battles between the military and its opposition. Every day brought new streams of refugees, with tales of rape, torture, killing, and forced labor.
She headed home and in the fall of 1992, Redford enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School to study human rights and environmental law but as soon as school was out for the summer, she left again for Thailand. This time she went as an intern for Human Rights Watch
, documenting abuses associated with forced labor. She returned to the same refugee camp to live with the same Burmese family she had stayed with the summer before. The father, a pro-democracy activist, arranged to sneak her into Burma. (The military, which staged a coup in 1988, officially changed the country's name to Myanmar
the following year.)
That year Redford met Ka Hsaw Wa
, a Karen
student activist who had fled to the jungle and was collecting villagers' tales of abuse under the junta. She spent three weeks with him and a small group paddling up the Salween River
, stopping at villages near the front lines of fighting between the military and the opposition and gathering villagers’ stories.
The summer after their second year, she and two classmates got a fellowship to look at the World Bank
's presence in Thailand
and Burma. But Ka Hsaw Wa
told them the real story was the Yadana Pipeline, being built by French company Total S.A.
and Unocal, which is headquartered in El Segundo, CA. The 39-mile natural gas line cuts through the Burmese jungle to the Thai border.
Her third year, she did an independent research project on the Alien Torts Claims Act and Unocal's role in the Burmese pipeline, the paper that earned her an A. She also wrote a grant proposal to start EarthRights International, a nonprofit human rights organization. The day after she took the bar examination, in 1995, she returned to Thailand
to live and run the newly formed group with Ka Hsaw Wa
and a fellow law school graduate.
In November 1996, Redford and Ka Hsaw Wa
were married in a Thai village; they honeymooned in Phuket
. The following October, she filed Doe v. Unocal
, and in March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas. This case was documented in the 2006 film Total Denial
.
Redford is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law
University of Virginia School of Law
The University of Virginia School of Law was founded in Charlottesville in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as one of the original subjects taught at his "academical village," the University of Virginia. The law school maintains an enrollment of approximately 1,100 students in its initial degree program...
(UVA), where she received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights and Public Service. She is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar and served as counsel to plaintiffs in ERI's landmark case Doe v. Unocal
Doe v. Unocal
Doe v. Unocal, was a lawsuit filed against Unocal for alleged human rights violations.-Events:In September 1997, 13 Burmese villagers filed suit against Unocal and their parent company, the Union Oil Company of California under the Alien Tort Claims Act...
. Redford received an Echoing Green Fellowship
Echoing green
For the electronic band, see The Echoing Green , for the poem see The Echoing GreenEchoing Green is a twenty year-old global non-profit organization operating in the area of early-stage social sector investing...
in 1995 to establish ERI, and since that time has split her time between ERI's Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and US offices. In addition to working on ERI's litigation and teaching at the EarthRights Schools, Redford currently serves as an adjunct professor of law at both UVA and the Washington College of Law
Washington College of Law
American University Washington College of Law is the law school of American University. It is located on Massachusetts Avenue in the Spring Valley neighborhood of northwest Washington. WCL is ranked 50th among law schools by US News and World Report...
at American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
. She has published on various issues associated with human rights and corporate accountability, in addition to co-authoring ERI reports such as In Our Court, Shock and Law, and Total Denial Continues. In 2006, Redford was selected as an Ashoka Global Fellow
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, VA, supporting the field of social entrepreneurship. Ashoka was founded by Bill Drayton in 1981 to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a Social Venture Capital approach with the goal of...
.
Human Rights Law
Redford introduced a simple and powerful idea into the human rights movement: that corporations can be brought to court for their role in overseas abuse. While American and European courts have customarily declined to hear cases where abuses have occurred outside their jurisdiction, Redford and her team at EarthRights International (ERI) broke their reluctance by uncovering legal tools and strategies that overcome the barrier of jurisdiction.In 1994 Redford turned in a law school paper suggesting the use of an ancient federal statute to fight human rights abuses in Burma, The Alien Torts Claims Act. The act dates back to 1789, when George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
signed the fledgling nation's first Judiciary Act
Judiciary Act of 1789
The United States Judiciary Act of 1789 was a landmark statute adopted on September 24, 1789 in the first session of the First United States Congress establishing the U.S. federal judiciary...
. An obscure provision in it appears to give foreigners the right to sue in federal court over violations of international law. Though the act has been used to sue individuals, it has never been used successfully to sue a corporation for human rights abuses. Her professor gave her an A but warned that such a case would never occur. That student paper, "Using the Alien Torts Claims Act: Unocal v. Burma," became the basis of the groundbreaking case John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al. In March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas. Unocal eventually settled the case out of court.
In 1995 Redford received seed money from Echoing Green
Echoing green
For the electronic band, see The Echoing Green , for the poem see The Echoing GreenEchoing Green is a twenty year-old global non-profit organization operating in the area of early-stage social sector investing...
to launch EarthRights International (ERI) with Tyler Giannini and Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is a member of the Karen indigenous group. Along with his wife, environmental and human rights attorney Katie Redford, he is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of , an organization that focuses on human rights in Burma and other areas "where...
. ERI began its work with offices in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, as a nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of human rights and the environment—which it defines as “earth rights”—by documenting abuses, mounting legal actions against the perpetrators of earth rights abuses, providing training for grassroots and community leaders, and launching advocacy campaigns.
ERI brought the case of John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al., to both state and federal courts in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Most legal experts believed the case would never fly and at first it appeared they may be right. But seeing possibilities where the experts could not, Redford persevered throughout the protracted, ten-year-long legal battle. ERI had their case dismissed in 2000, fought back and won by appeal, the right to continue.
As the years passed, the case gained traction. Redford trudged forward, putting in countless hours of legal work, fundraising and research, and building coalitions with likeminded organizations such as Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Al Odah v. United States:Al Odah is the latest in a series of habeas corpus petitions on behalf of people imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The case challenges the Military Commissions system’s suitability as a habeas corpus substitute and the legality, in general, of detention at...
. After several years of fighting an uphill battle without losing hope, the rewards finally came, in 2004. Unocal agreed to settle the lawsuit. It was the first time in history that a major multinational corporation had settled a case of this type for monetary damages.
In the landmark settlement, the company agreed to compensate the Burmese villagers who sued the firm for complicity in forced labor, rape, and murder. By combining human rights law and environmental law, ERI had come up with a new and untested strategy that succeeded where older solutions had failed. Their story was documented in the 2006 documentary film Total Denial
Total Denial
Total Denial is a 2006 documentary film about fifteen Burmese villagers going up against oil giants UNOCAL and TOTAL as they build the Yadana Pipeline.-Video:*, from Democracy Now! program, October 12, 2007...
.
Equally importantly, the Unocal case set a strong legal precedent. As a result of ERI’s efforts, a series of rulings in the California Federal Court established that a corporation can indeed be held liable in U.S. courts for encouraging human rights violations by a foreign government. This put corporations on notice and forced them to consider their actions abroad.
Unocal attempted to recover the damages from its insurer. The insurer did not pay, but instead reviewed its policies to ensure that it would not be liable to cover damages for murder, rape, and torture. Then banks began reviewing their liability for funding the projects. Thus, liability for abuse becomes an important business issue, not merely the preoccupation of a few activists.
Today Redford and her team at ERI use the Unocal case as a model to fight corporate misbehavior. Working in partnership with other legal organizations and private lawyers, they seeks to remedy abuses of earth rights—all over the world. For instance, Redford and ERI are currently working with the victims of human rights abuses associated with the activities of the oil company Chevron
Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...
in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
to fight the case
Bowoto v. Chevron Corp.
In October 2008, a lawsuit against Chevron Nigeria Ltd. , went to trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California...
against Chevron
Chevron Corporation
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...
in federal court in San Francisco.
Biography
Born on March 7, 1968 she was raised in Wellesley, MA and in 1986 she graduated from Wellesley High SchoolWellesley High School
Wellesley High School is a public high school in Wellesley, Massachusetts, executing grades 9 through 12. Its current principal is Dr. Andrew Keough, who assumed the position in 2007 after the retirement of Ms. Rena Mirkin. Its two assistant principals are Lynne Novogroski and Nora Curran...
. Redford attended Colgate University
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
in rural upstate New York where she was a member of the swimming and diving teams. She found spending six hours a day in the water too much and later quit and began playing rugby, a Division I sport at Colgate.
After graduating from college in 1990, Redford signed on with the WorldTeach
WorldTeach
WorldTeach is a non-governmental organization that provides opportunities for individuals to make a meaningful contribution to international education by living and working as volunteer teachers in developing countries. Founded in 1986 by a group of Harvard University students, WorldTeach places...
program and found herself teaching English in a village on the Thai-Burmese border.
On her summer break she visited a Thai refugee camp and lived with a family who had fled the Burmese military dictatorship. There she taught English in a bamboo hut. Along the border, bombs would explode from battles between the military and its opposition. Every day brought new streams of refugees, with tales of rape, torture, killing, and forced labor.
She headed home and in the fall of 1992, Redford enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School to study human rights and environmental law but as soon as school was out for the summer, she left again for Thailand. This time she went as an intern for Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, documenting abuses associated with forced labor. She returned to the same refugee camp to live with the same Burmese family she had stayed with the summer before. The father, a pro-democracy activist, arranged to sneak her into Burma. (The military, which staged a coup in 1988, officially changed the country's name to Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
the following year.)
That year Redford met Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is a member of the Karen indigenous group. Along with his wife, environmental and human rights attorney Katie Redford, he is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of , an organization that focuses on human rights in Burma and other areas "where...
, a Karen
Karen people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
student activist who had fled to the jungle and was collecting villagers' tales of abuse under the junta. She spent three weeks with him and a small group paddling up the Salween River
Salween River
The Salween is a river, about long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of that extends into the countries China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the...
, stopping at villages near the front lines of fighting between the military and the opposition and gathering villagers’ stories.
The summer after their second year, she and two classmates got a fellowship to look at the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
's presence in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and Burma. But Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is a member of the Karen indigenous group. Along with his wife, environmental and human rights attorney Katie Redford, he is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of , an organization that focuses on human rights in Burma and other areas "where...
told them the real story was the Yadana Pipeline, being built by French company Total S.A.
Total S.A.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...
and Unocal, which is headquartered in El Segundo, CA. The 39-mile natural gas line cuts through the Burmese jungle to the Thai border.
Her third year, she did an independent research project on the Alien Torts Claims Act and Unocal's role in the Burmese pipeline, the paper that earned her an A. She also wrote a grant proposal to start EarthRights International, a nonprofit human rights organization. The day after she took the bar examination, in 1995, she returned to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
to live and run the newly formed group with Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is a member of the Karen indigenous group. Along with his wife, environmental and human rights attorney Katie Redford, he is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of , an organization that focuses on human rights in Burma and other areas "where...
and a fellow law school graduate.
In November 1996, Redford and Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa is a Burmese human rights activist. He is a member of the Karen indigenous group. Along with his wife, environmental and human rights attorney Katie Redford, he is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of , an organization that focuses on human rights in Burma and other areas "where...
were married in a Thai village; they honeymooned in Phuket
Phuket Province
Phuket , formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon , is one of the southern provinces of Thailand...
. The following October, she filed Doe v. Unocal
Doe v. Unocal
Doe v. Unocal, was a lawsuit filed against Unocal for alleged human rights violations.-Events:In September 1997, 13 Burmese villagers filed suit against Unocal and their parent company, the Union Oil Company of California under the Alien Tort Claims Act...
, and in March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas. This case was documented in the 2006 film Total Denial
Total Denial
Total Denial is a 2006 documentary film about fifteen Burmese villagers going up against oil giants UNOCAL and TOTAL as they build the Yadana Pipeline.-Video:*, from Democracy Now! program, October 12, 2007...
.
External links
- EarthRights International
- "Doe v. Unocal Case History", EarthRights International, January 30, 2006
- Now on PBS, Episode 345, November 19, 2007 (video)
- Now on PBS, Episode 345, November 19, 2007 (transcript)
- "Debating the Alien Tort Claims Act", Now on PBS, January 9, 2004
- "Historic Advance for Universal Human Rights: Unocal to Compensate Burmese Villagers", Center for Constitutional Rights
- "Court Orders Unocal to Stand Trial for Abuses in Burma", Center for Constitutional Rights
- "Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California", Richard A. Paez and Ronald S.W. Lew, District Judges, Presiding, Argued and Submitted December 3, 2001, Filed September 18, 2002
- The Connection from WBUR and NPR, September 30, 2003
- Bella English, "Katie Redford's pipe dream", Boston Globe, October 22, 2003
- "Slaying Giants with Torts", Be Bold
- "Oil Giant Chevron Urged to Cut Ties with Burmese Military Junta", Democracy Now, October 12, 2007
- "The Giant Slayers", ABC News Nightline, May 5, 2005
- "Burma—Ending Forced Labor on Oil Pipelines", Chicago Public Radio - Worldview, January 24, 2007
- "Redford Appeals to Law Students to Fight Human Rights Abuses" University of Virginia Law School, Conference on Public Service and the Law, February 18, 2005
- "Unocal Settles Rights Suit in Myanmar", Bloomberg News, December 14, 2004
- "Court Tells Unocal to Face Rights Charges", New York Times, September 19, 2002
- "Colgate's Earthrights Crusader" The Colgate Scene, November 1996 Issue
- Echoing Green Fellowships
- Ashoka Global Fellowships
- "Total Denial", Documentary, 2006