News  Archive 2005
News Archive 2004

OECD Watch newsletter archive

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News 2007

4 October 2007: OECD Watch´s new briefing "Model National Contact Point" (released today) makes recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines, one of the few corporate accountability instruments currently available. The recommendations are based on the findings from extensive consultations among government officials, trade unions, business representatives and NGOs in 20 OECD countries. Almost none of the countries surveyed had properly functioning bodies to deal with complaints about violations of the OECD Guidelines. For more information, read the Model NCP and the press release.

January 31, CEDHA Protest Rejection of Botnia case. After the Finnish NCP released a statement in December 2006 rejecting CEDHAs specific instance against Botnia, CEDHA filed complaints to the Finnish Government Ombudsman (press release English) and the OECD Finance Committee (press release english)  against the Finnish NCP stating that they have failed in their task and rejected the case illegally.

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News 2006

November 20, 2006: OECD Watch publishes Guide to the Guidelines. Read the Guide to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises’ Complaint Procedure Lessons from Past NGO Complaints or email joseph@oecdwatch.org to recieve a hard copy.

November 17, 2006: Swedish NCP Accepts Complaint Against Nordea. The Swedish NCP (answering also on behalf of the Norwegian NCP) accepted a complaint filed by CEDHA (of Argentina) and Bellona (of Norway) against Nordea, a leading financial services group of the Nordic and Baltic Sea area, which was set to provide Botnia with a multi-million dollar package to finance the controversial investment in Uruguay. Read the NCP letter and press release.

November 2, 2006: OECD Watch member Carlos Zorilla of the Ecuadorian NGO DECOIN is in hiding. Last week, heavily-armed policemen raided the home of Carlos Zorrilla, a mining activist in the Intag cloudforest region of northwestern Ecuador. For over a decade, Carlos and his organization, DECOIN, have been working to protect the biodiverse Intag region from large-scale copper mining. To find out more read RAID's letter (English) . To help please send a protest letter demanding an end to the intimidation of Ecuadorian mining activists and urge officials in Ecuador to investigate the circumstances of the police raid and the charges that have been brought against Carlos.

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October 30, 2006: Citizens for Justice Malawi an OECD Watch member recently published this interesting report about the OECD Guidelines and the issues that countries from the South face when trying to bring justice for the contraventions of the OECD Guidelines in countries that are not members of the OECD. Read their report here in English and in French.

August 24, 2006: New case: Australian Conservation Foundation, the Human Rights Council of Australia and three PNG community groups: the Environmental Law Centre, the PNG Eco-Forestry Forum and the Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights (CELCOR) have submitted a specific instance against ANZ Bank over its financial support of logging companies that are engaged in human rights abuses and environmental destruction in PNG. Read the press release and the specific instance complaint here.

August 18, 2006: OECD Watch publishes briefing paper on the Promotion of OECD Guidelines and the role of NCPs in handling Specific Instances. The briefing paper outlines OECD Watch's recent work in promoting the Guidelines and provides suggestions to improve NCPs' promotion of the Guidelines and handling of Guidelines cases. Read the paper here. 

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July 2006: New OECD Watch member. Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is the newest OECD Watch member (http://www.acfonline.org.au/). ACF's contact person for OECD Watch is Charles Berger. Please see the list of Members.

July 25, 2006: The Austrian National Contact Point issues remarks on the OECD Watch recommendations concerning NCPs. The Austrian NCP has issued remarks on OECD Watch's 2005 publication 'Five years on - A review of the OECD Guidelines and National Contact Points'.

July 17, 2006: On July 6th and 7th, 2006, over 40 participants from 20 different countries gathered in Accra, Ghana for the OECD Watch Inter-regional Training and Strategy Seminar. The seminar, which was organised by OECD Watch member organisations IRENE and WACAM, focused on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and other international instruments that can be used to hold mining companies accountable for their activities in Africa. Following the 2-day conference, participants embarked on three days of fact-finding trips to the Wassa area in the Central and Western regions of Ghana, find out more from this report. Participants observed the devastating social and environmental effects of gold mining by multinational companies and met with community members to hear their stories of life in and around the mining sites. For more information, please see the conference resolution, and the WACAM background document.

July 14, 2006: Joint Working Group Statement on the workings of the OECD Guidelines mechanism in the UK. For more information, please see the statement, the RAID stakeholder consultation document and the UK government response to the consultation

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June 26, 2006: Transparency International publishes Progress Report on Enforcement of OECD Anti-Bribery Convention: Transparency International (T.I.) published a report on the progress in enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. According to the report only a third of OECD member states have taken significant enforcement action under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials. For more information, please see the progress report and the press release.

June 22, 2006: New OECD Watch newsletter The latest edition of OECD Watch's biannual newsletter is now available.
Read the June 2006 OECD Watch Newsletter in English, français or español.

June 8, 2006: Report OECD Watch training seminar Warsaw
On the 24th and 25th of April OECD Watch organised an international training seminar on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in Warsaw, Poland. For more information, please see the short summary of the seminar.

June, 2006: OECD Watch produces Guide to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises' Complaint Mechanism: Lessons from Past NGO Complaints. Download the Guide here.

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May 2006, Two important victories for NGOs in OECD cases

1. In December, 2005, NGOs announced their success in encouraging Aker Kværner (Norwegian) to operate under international human rights standards. The Norwegian NCP declared:  "the activities that the company has carried out can be said, at least partly, to have affected the inmates of the [Guantanamo] prison." The NCP further "strongly encouraged" the company to draw up guidelines for ethical behaviour. Read the NCP's full statement.
   
2. In April 2006 the GSL case (Australia) was succesfully concluded. The detention centres meet the demands of five NGO's to implement significant changes. The ANCP stated that 'throuthout the process, the parties engaged with goodwill and commonsense." For more information, see the NCPs final statement and the NGOs press release.