INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES INC
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Mission Statement
International Rights Advocates is a non-profit legal advocacy organization dedicated to bringing justice to the global economy. IRAdvocates uses creative approaches to law to bring human rights claims against corporations and individuals who act lawlessly in the global economy. IRAdvocates gives a voice to workers and others impacted by human rights violations when companies operate in lawless environments and fail to observe international standards and, often, their own policies. IRAdvocates always works with local partners to research human rights violations and interview witnesses. In this process, IRAdvocates trains its partners and works to explore how to use and improve local legal systems to better protect victims of human rights violations. We also work jointly with local lawyers, activists, and journalists to communicate the realities of the global economy to the world. IRAdvocates participates in several international initiatives seeking to improve ways to regulate multinationals in the global economy.
About This Cause
International Rights Advocates is a non-profit legal advocacy organization. Terry Collingsworth is the founder and Executive Director. He has been practicing law in the United States for over 35 years, and for the last 25, has specialized in international human rights litigation. IRAdvocates works all over the world, from India and West Africa to most countries in South America, addressing a wide range of human rights issues. We always work with local partners who reach out to us to help a serious human rights issue. Most of our work/cases originate because a multinational company operating in a country without a fully functioning or corrupt legal system uses the lack of the rule of law to exploit and abuse workers, farmers and others impacted by the company’s operations. IRAdvocates prioritizes cases attempting to prevent multinational companies from violating the human rights of children who are forced by poverty and other factors to work in global supply chains. Often the children are trafficked. A representative case is John Doe 1 et al. v. Nestle, SA and Cargill, a case currently pending in the United States Supreme Court (Case Nos. 19-416 & 19-453). This is a class action in which IRAdvocates represents six representative Plaintiffs who were trafficked from Mali when they were children and forced to perform hazardous work harvesting cocoa in Cote D’Ivoire on plantations that supply to Nestle, Cargill and other large cocoa companies. They were treated as child slaves, receiving no pay and getting fed enough just to keep them working. Recently, IRAdvocates filed a class action in U.S. federal court in the District of Columbia (Case No. CV 1:19-cv-03737) on behalf of 14 Doe Plaintiffs who are either guardians of children killed in tunnel or wall collapses while mining cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) or children who were maimed in such accidents. The suit names Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla as Defendants. The suit alleges these companies in particular aided and abetted the mines that abused and profited from forcing the Doe Plaintiffs and other children to mine cobalt under dangerous conditions that led to their deaths or serious, crippling injuries. Both of these cases have the potential to establish supply chain liability when companies are knowingly benefiting from child slavery or forced labor. In both cases, as part of IRAdvocates’ mission, we are working with and training local lawyers who are partners in gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses and protecting the safety and security of our clients. IRAdvocates also has cases in U.S. Courts against Chiquita Brands International and Drummond Company, Inc. for partnering with right wing death squads in Colombia that provided “security” for the companies but also murdered thousands of innocent people in the process, including union leaders, environmental activists, and anyone suspected of being a leftist. We represent family members of those murdered by the companies’ paramilitary forces. In that context, IRAdvocates is also working with Colombian officials to bring company officials before the criminal courts and face justice in Colombia’s post-war legal system. IRAdvocates also focuses on doing research on human rights violations in the global economy and educating consumers and regulators about the realities of what global corporations are doing when they are not constrained by law. IRAdvocates is, in short, a small non-profit seeking to bring justice to the global economy and trying to train local partners how to introduce the rule of law in situations in which corporate marauders are acting unchecked.