Katharine "Katie" Redford (born March 7, 1968) is an American human rights lawyer and activist who is credited with spearheading a movement to hold international companies accountable for overseas abuse in their home court jurisdictions, and in doing so, opened up new possibilities in
human rights law
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, ag ...
. Along with her husband, human rights activist
Ka Hsaw Wa from Burma/Myanmmar, she is the co-founder of
EarthRights International, a non-profit group of activists, organizers, and lawyers with expertise in human rights, the environment, and corporate/government accountability. She left EarthRights in 2019 after 25 years to lead the newly founde
Equation Campaign a ten-year funding initiative working to bring about a safe future by enhancing the power of movements to keep oil and gas in the ground.
Redford is a graduate of the
University of Virginia School of Law
The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 as part of his "academical village", and now ...
(UVA), where she received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights and Public Service. She is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar and served as counsel to plaintiffs in EarthRights's landmark case
Doe v. Unocal. Redford received an
Echoing Green
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...
Fellowship
[Echoing Green website, 2005 Fellows (http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/katherine-redford )] in 1995 to establish EarthRights, and helped build the organization to a global institution with offices in Burma, Thailand, Peru and Washington, D.C. In addition to working on EarthRight's litigation and teaching at the EarthRights Schools, Redford has served as an adjunct professor of law at both UVA and the
Washington College of Law
The American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL or WCL) is the law school of American University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It is located on the western side of Tenley Circle in the Tenleytown section of northw ...
at
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...
. She has published on various issues associated with human rights and corporate accountability, in addition to co-authoring ERI reports such as ''In Our Court'', ''Shock and Law'', and ''Total Denial Continues''. In 2006, Redford was selected as an
Ashoka Global Fellow.
Human rights law
Redford introduced a simple and powerful idea into the human rights movement: that corporations can be brought to court for their role in overseas abuse. While American and European courts have customarily declined to hear cases where abuses have occurred outside their jurisdiction, Redford and her team a
EarthRights International(ERI) broke their reluctance by uncovering legal tools and strategies that overcome the barrier of jurisdiction.
In 1994 Redford turned in a law school paper suggesting the use of an ancient federal statute to fight human rights abuses in
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
, The
Alien Torts Claims Act. The act dates back to 1789, when
George Washington
George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
signed the fledgling nation's first
Judiciary Act. An obscure provision in it appears to give foreigners the right to sue in federal court over violations of international law. Though the act has been used to sue individuals, it has never been used successfully to sue a corporation for human rights abuses. Her professor gave her an A but warned that such a case would never occur. That student paper, ''"Using the Alien Torts Claims Act:
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
v.
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
,"'' became the basis of the groundbreaking case John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al. In March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas.
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
eventually settled the case out of court.
[Bloomberg News, December 14, 2004, "Unocal Settles Rights Suit in Myanmar" (https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/business/14unocal.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=unocal+settles+burma&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)]
In 1995 Redford received seed money from Echoing Green
to launc
EarthRights International(ERI) with Tyler Giannini and
Ka Hsaw Wa. EarthRights began its work with offices in
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
and
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, as a nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of human rights and the environment—which it defines as "earth rights"—by documenting abuses, mounting legal actions against the perpetrators of earth rights abuses, providing training for grassroots and community leaders, and launching advocacy campaigns.
EarthRights brought the case of John Doe I, et al. v. Unocal Corp., et al., to both state and federal courts in
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. Most legal experts believed the case would never fly and at first it appeared they may be right. But seeing possibilities where the experts could not, Redford persevered throughout the protracted, ten-year-long legal battle. EarthRights had their case dismissed in 2000, fought back and won by appeal,
[New York Times, September 19, 2002, "Court Tells Unocal to Face Rights Charges" (https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D91330F93AA2575AC0A9649C8B63&scp=2&sq=unocal+human+rights&st=nyt)] the right to continue.
As the years passed, the case gained traction. Redford continued with legal work, fundraising and research, and building coalitions with likeminded organizations such as
Center for Constitutional Rights
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR; formerly Law Center for Constitutional Rights) is an American progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1966 by lawyers William Kunstler, Arthur Kin ...
. After several years of fighting an uphill battle without losing hope, the rewards finally came, in 2004.
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
agreed to settle the lawsuit.
It was the first time in history that a major multinational corporation had settled a case of this type for monetary damages.
In the landmark settlement, the company agreed to compensate the Burmese villagers who sued the firm for complicity in forced labor, rape, and murder. By combining human rights law and environmental law, EarthRights had come up with a new and untested strategy that succeeded where older solutions had failed. Their story was documented in the 2006 documentary film ''
Total Denial
''Total Denial'' is a 2006 documentary film about fifteen Burmese villagers going up against oil giants UNOCAL and Total
Total may refer to:
Mathematics
* Total, the summation of a set of numbers
* Total order, a partial order without incompa ...
''.
Equally importantly, the
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
case set a strong legal precedent. As a result of Earthrights' efforts, a series of rulings in the California Federal Court
established that a corporation can indeed be held liable in U.S. courts for encouraging human rights violations by a foreign government. This put corporations on notice and forced them to consider their actions abroad.
Unocal attempted to recover the damages from its insurer. The insurer did not pay, but instead reviewed its policies to ensure that it would not be liable to cover damages for murder, rape, and torture. Then banks began reviewing their liability for funding the projects. Thus, liability for abuse becomes an important business issue, not merely the preoccupation of a few activists.
EarthRights continues to use the
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
case as a model to fight corporate misbehavior. Working in partnership with other legal organizations and private lawyers, they seeks to remedy abuses of earth rights—all over the world.
Today, at The Equation Campaign, Redford directs strategy, partnerships, and grantmaking focused on ending the expansion of fossil fuels in the United States, where the majority of global expansion is planned.
Biography
Born on March 7, 1968, she was raised in
Wellesley, MA and in 1986 she graduated from
Wellesley High School
Wellesley High School is a public high school in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States, educating students on grades 9 through 12. The principal is Jamie Chisum, who took the position in 2014 after the departure of Andrew Keough. As of 202 ...
. Redford attended
Colgate University
Colgate University is a Private university, private college in Hamilton, New York, United States. The Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York ...
[The Colgate Scene, November 1996 Issue "Colgate's Earthrights Crusader" (http://www4.colgate.edu/scene/nov1996/redford.html )] in rural upstate New York where she was a member of the swimming and diving teams. She found spending six hours a day in the water too much and later quit and began playing rugby, a Division I sport at Colgate.
After graduating from college in 1990, Redford signed on with the
WorldTeach program and found herself teaching English in a village on the Thai-Burmese border.
On her summer break she visited a Thai refugee camp and lived with a family who had fled the Burmese military dictatorship. There she taught English in a bamboo hut. Along the border, bombs would explode from battles between the military and its opposition. Every day brought new streams of refugees, with tales of rape, torture, killing, and forced labor.
She headed home and in the fall of 1992, Redford enrolled at the
University of Virginia Law School
The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 as part of his "academical village", and now ...
to study human rights and environmental law but as soon as school was out for the summer, she left again for Thailand. This time she went as an intern for
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
, documenting abuses associated with forced labor. She returned to the same refugee camp to live with the same Burmese family she had stayed with the summer before. The father, a pro-democracy activist, arranged to sneak her into
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
. (The military, which staged a coup in 1988, officially changed the country's name to
Myanmar
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...
the following year.)
That year Redford met
Ka Hsaw Wa, a
Karen
Karen may refer to:
* Karen (name), a given name and surname
* Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding white woman displaying certain behaviors
People
* Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand
* House of Karen, a historic ...
student activist who had fled to the jungle and was collecting villagers' tales of abuse under the junta. She spent three weeks with him and a small group paddling up the
Salween River
The Salween is a Southeast Asian river, about long, flowing from the Tibetan Plateau south into the Andaman Sea. The Salween flows primarily within southwest China and eastern Myanmar, with a short section forming the border of Myanmar and Tha ...
, stopping at villages near the front lines of fighting between the military and the opposition and gathering villagers' stories.
The summer after their second year, she and two classmates got a fellowship to look at the
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
's presence in
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
and
Burma
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
. But Ka Hsaw Wa told them the real story was the
Yadana Pipeline
The Yadana pipeline is a transboundary natural gas pipeline linking Myanmar's Yadana gas field to Thailand. Built from 1995 to 1998 with the support of Thailand through the Petroleum Authority of Thailand, the project was subject to controvers ...
, being built by French company
Total S.A.
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas explorat ...
and
Unocal
Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
, which is headquartered in
El Segundo, CA
El Segundo ( , ; ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is part of the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay Cities Council of Governments. The ...
. The 39-mile natural gas line cuts through the Burmese jungle to the Thai border.
Her third year, she did an independent research project on the
Alien Torts Claims Act and Unocal's role in the Burmese pipeline. She also wrote a grant proposal to star
EarthRights International a nonprofit human rights organization. The day after she took the bar examination, in 1995, she returned to
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
to live and run the newly formed group with Ka Hsaw Wa and a fellow law school graduate.
In November 1996, Redford and
Ka Hsaw Wa were married in a Thai village. The following October, she filed
Doe v. Unocal, and in March 1997 it became the first case in which jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses overseas. This case was documented in the 2006 film ''
Total Denial
''Total Denial'' is a 2006 documentary film about fifteen Burmese villagers going up against oil giants UNOCAL and Total
Total may refer to:
Mathematics
* Total, the summation of a set of numbers
* Total order, a partial order without incompa ...
''.
External links
EarthRights International*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080118104102/http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/345/video.html Now on PBS, Episode 345, November 19, 2007 (video)Now on PBS, Episode 345, November 19, 2007 (transcript)* [http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/historic-advance-universal-human-rights%3A-unocal-compensate-burmese-villagers "Historic Advance for Universal Human Rights: Unocal to Compensate Burmese Villagers", Center for Constitutional Rights]
"Court Orders Unocal to Stand Trial for Abuses in Burma", Center for Constitutional Rights"Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California", Richard A. Paez and Ronald S.W. Lew, District Judges, Presiding, Argued and Submitted December 3, 2001, Filed September 18, 2002The Connection from WBUR and NPR, September 30, 2003Bella English, "Katie Redford's pipe dream", Boston Globe, October 22, 2003"Oil Giant Chevron Urged to Cut Ties with Burmese Military Junta", Democracy Now, October 12, 2007"The Giant Slayers", ABC News Nightline, May 5, 2005"Burma—Ending Forced Labor on Oil Pipelines", Chicago Public Radio - Worldview, January 24, 2007
*
ttps://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/business/14unocal.html?r=2&scp=1&sq=unocal+settles+burma&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin "Unocal Settles Rights Suit in Myanmar", Bloomberg News, December 14, 2004"Court Tells Unocal to Face Rights Charges", New York Times, September 19, 2002
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20081019125825/http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/katherine-redford Echoing Green FellowshipsAshoka Global Fellowships"Total Denial", Documentary, 2006
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Redford, Katie
American human rights activists
American women human rights activists
American environmentalists
1968 births
Living people
Wellesley High School alumni
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
Colgate University alumni