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      • Canada shouldn't side with Talisman

Canada shouldn't side with Talisman

Will Canada stand up for international human rights or will it defend a Canadian company that is accused of complicity in genocide?

In Sudan, Canada is conflicted: on the one hand, aiding the victims of years of civil-war abuse and, on the other, coming to the assistance of one of the alleged sponsors of that war.

Talisman Energy Inc., of Calgary, is currently being sued in a U.S. court by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan for what the church alleges is the company's role in human-rights abuses in southern Sudan. The Canadian government is trying to make the case go away.

We think this is a time for Canada to side with the victims of that abuse and help set an example for corporations operating abroad.

Over the past year, a coalition of human-rights and environmental groups, unions and Canadian churches has been urging the government to adopt binding human rights, labour, and environmental standards for Canadian corporations operating overseas, particularly those involved in mining, a sector Canada dominates.

At issue is the existing approach of encouraging voluntary compliance with international human rights, labour, and environmental standards. This approach, where corporations agree in principle to fairly weak standards, has failed. The government needs to start holding Canadian corporations, like Talisman, accountable for their actions overseas.

Corporate heads disagree, claiming that tighter controls will make them less competitive. Besides, they argue, their companies abide by the standards set in the countries where they operate.

We don't think that's good enough.

The coalition argues that, at a minimum, support for Canadian companies -- both financial and political -- should be conditioned on compliance with tough international standards.

The standing committee on foreign affairs and international trade agrees. The committee is urging Canadian officials to establish clear legal norms "to hold Canadian companies to account" for their activities abroad.

Even as the case against Talisman proceeds in a New York district court, our government has asked Washington to persuade the court to dismiss the lawsuit. In a diplomatic note to the U.S. State Department from the Canadian embassy in Washington, Canada requested that U.S. officials intervene. The note said the case is "problematic" for international relations because the "assumption of extraterritorial jurisdiction by a U.S. court constitutes an infringement in the conduct of foreign relations by the Government of Canada."

Canada is opposed to the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, the 1789 law that allows the Sudanese church to pursue its claims in a U.S. court against a Canadian corporation for allegedly aiding in the destruction of its country. This law allows suits against foreign companies for any "violation of the law of nations." This wording from the act is increasingly being viewed as referring to breaches of international human-rights and humanitarian law, especially in cases of genocide.

Canada's intervention seems contrary both to Canadian citizens' interests and those of the Canadian government. In Sudan, Canada has been supporting peace with both money and material. Why then wouldn't the government support legal efforts to seek remedies for past abuses, and set examples for others to come?

Rather than obstruct the U.S. courts, the Canadian government should be distancing itself from corporations such as Talisman, while searching for constructive ways, such as the Alien Tort Claims Act, to ensure that all Canadian activities support human rights abroad. For war-affected Sudanese and their supporters, this kind of extraterritorial law is what an industrial nation such as Canada needs. In their struggle for human rights, developing nations don't need Canada making the situation worse.

John Lewis co-ordinates the international human-rights program at KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

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