(Photo: Sharpeshift/Flickr) A series of verdicts by the Permanent Tribunal of the People, culminating in a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels in November 2009, finds several European multinationals guilty of human, labour, or environmental rights abuses, and puts under scrutiny the complicity of European commercial policy. by Giuliana Pisani The Permanent Tribunal of the People is an international tribunual of opinion, independent of all state authority. Promoted by the International Foundation Lelio Basso for the rights and liberation of the people, the Tribunal was founded the 24th June 1979 in Bologna, by a substantial group of jurists, writers, intellectuals and activists coming from 31 states and having amongst its members 5 Nobel Prize winners. The Tribunal finds its historical roots in the experience of the Russell Tribunal on the Vietnam war and on the military regimes in Latin America. The verdicts given – 36 since 1979 – have a moral authority and are recognized by the Commission for Human rights at the United Nations. The examination of cases has its origin in the denunciation of violations of human rights and the rights of peoples by collectivities and by individuals, and it is the practice of the Tribunal to inform interested parties of its procedures, to give them every chance of defence. In 2005 the Biregional European-latin American network Enlanzando Alternativas and the non governmnental institute the Transnational Institute asked the Tribunual to judge several European subsidiary companies present in South America for the violation of the rights of access to essential services, of the right to land, of the right to food sovreignity, to security and to public health, trade union rights and work rights, and the rights of indiginous peoples. The denunciation presented to the Tribunal regarded the agro-alimentary sector, the agro-chemical, mineral and petroleum sectors, biochemicals, telecommunications, finance, and public services like electricity and public goods like water. At the conclusion of the hearing, in May 2006 in Vienna, the Tribunal found that “The complexity and the seriousness of the reports and of the correspoding violations” required a more in depth hearing and the convocation of a formal session, entitled ‘Neoliberal politics and european multinationals in Latin America and in the Caraibbean’, which took place in Lima in May 2008. The testimonies at the session revealed how financial fluxes and direct European investments had widened the gap of social inequality, and had concentrated riches to a unprecedented level in the favour of the multinationals. The strategic document of the European Commission “Global Europe – competing in the world”, was seen to promote a new generation of bilateral agreements aiming to guarantee the interests of European multinational corporations abroad. On the basis of these testimonies, the verdict in Lima morally sanctioned and denounced European multinationals for: serious, clear, and persistent violations of principles, norms, and international agreements in defense of civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights of Latin American communities and peoples. The Lima session proposed that the member states of the European Union and the Union itself should ensure that all economic and cooperation agreements respect international conventions and UN declarations on fundamental rights, human development, democracy, and environmental protection. On the 18th of November 2009 a hearing was held at the European Parliament in Brussels, with the participation of representatives of Enlazando Alternativas, the Permanent Tribunal of the People, and direct testimonies from victims of alleged human rights violations at the hands of the German TyssenKrupp and the Swiss Sygenta in Brazil, the Spanish Rio Blanco in Peru, the Spanish Repsol in Nicaragua. The Secretery Generaly of the Permanent Tribunal of the People, Gianni Tognoni, concluded the institutional hearing calling for a greater involvement of the European Parliament in the following areas: the qualification of “crimes against humanity” the violations committed by multinational corporations; the setting up of an international organism based on participative democracy that would monitor the conduct of multinational corporations; adoption of a binding code of conduct for all European subsidiaries dealing with human and environmental rights. The MEPs present at the meeting agreed to monitor existing commercial agreements and agreements under negotiation between the European Commission and Latin American governments, and monitoring the conduct of European multinationals already condemned by the Permant Tribunal of the People. These proposals will be relaunched in May 2010 in Madrid where, as per the trials in Vienna and Lima, the final session of the Tribunal will be held, parallel with the summit of European and Latin American heads of state. This last session will have the task of qualifying the juridical responsibility of multinational coorporations and of proposing an alternative path for European industrial and commercial expansion, one that refuses the primacy of economy over politics.