Monsanto Endangers Rights to Food, Health, Environment: Int’l Tribunal

The U.S.-based multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto “has engaged in practices which have negatively impacted the right to a healthy environment, the right to food, and the right to health,” the panel of five international judges of the Monsanto Tribunal said in The Hague on April 18.  The tribunal, including five judges from Canada, Beulgium, Argentina, Mexico, and Senegal, made the statement after initial hearings took place on October 16-18, 2016 in the Netherlands. The conclusion, unbinding and having only legal advisory value, was based on evidences collected from 30 witnesses and experts from five continents over the past months. The tribunal worked on six questions regarding: the right to a healthy environment; the right to food; the right to the highest attainable standard of health; the freedom indispensable for scientific research; whether Monsanto was complicit in the commission of a war crime by providing materials to the United States army in the context of operation “Ranch Hand,” launched in Vietnam in 1962; and whether Monsanto’s activities constitute a crime of ecocide. The fifth question concerned Monsanto’s complicity in war crimes in the Vietnam War. During 1962–1973, over 70 million liters of Agent Orange (containing dioxin) was deposited on roughly 2.6 million hectares of land, causing severe health problems to Vietnamese population. That chemical also harmed U.S., Australian, New Zealand, and Korean vets resulting in litigation implicating Monsanto’s involvement in the war. However, the tribunal did not give a definitive response to this inquiry, only stating that Monsanto probably knew how its products would be used and had prior knowledge of the product’s health consequences. In a lawsuit which Vietnamese AO victims lodged in the U.S. in 2004 –2009, Monsanto was the essential company among 37 defendants. Monsanto began its operation in Vietnam since 1995 under the form of Monsanto Thailand’s representative office. In August 2010, Monsanto set up office in Vietnam with the name of Dekalb Vietnam Company Limited, specializing in maize, vegetable seeds, and biotech. In 2014, Vietnam licensed several kinds of genetically modified (GM) sweet corn produced by Dekalb Vietnam. In 2015, Vietnam allowed massive growing of GM maize, ranking the 29th country permitted this GM product. Since 2015, Dekalb Vietnam boosted sales of GM corn and herbicide in Vietnam despite concerns about negative impacts caused by the GM products. In 2016, Dekalb Vietnam was honored among 100 firms in Vietnam’s Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI). (www.monsanto-tribunal.org April 18, www.telesurtv.net April 18, www.ip-watch.org April 19, Dan Tri April 20, ZING April 20, Thanh Nien April 20)