Global Trade

Petrochemicals group Kolmar, based in Zug, Switzerland, sued three journalists and two NGOs, for publishing a report alleging that the company was sourcing refined oil from the Zawiya refinery in Libya during the civil war. In February 2024, a Swiss court found that the report was in the public interest and ruled against Kolmar. Read More

Cobre Panamá, the largest open pit copper mine in Central America, is operated by Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals. After some 250,000 people in Panama took to the streets to protest against corruption and environmental damage at the mine, Panama’s supreme court declared that First Quantum’s contract to operate the mine unconstitutional, causing it to be shut down. Read More

Energy Transition Minerals is demanding that Greenland fork over 76 billion Danish kroner (US$11.15 billion) after the government changed environmental laws that made uranium mining illegal – effectively shutting down a previously approved rare earth and uranium mining project in Kvanefjeld, southern Greenland. Read More

Próspera, a company based in the U.S. state of Delaware, has invoked an investor-state dispute settlement treaty to try to force the government of Honduras to pay US$11 billion for outlawing the company’s plan to operate a privately run city on the island of Roatán. Read More

Protests against Adani's plans to build a deep water port in the Indian state of Kerala reached a climax after a four month blockade by local fisherfolk who are concerned that the project will cause coastal erosion and destroy their livelihoods. Read More

Photographs and interviews with dozens of Indonesian fishermen by the Environmental Justice Foundation, a UK based investigative NGO, and Mongabay have revealed that Dalian Ocean Fishing is using banned equipment to harvest shark fins, in violation of international law. Read More

Stanka Becheva, a food and agriculture campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe, speaks by video with Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch about the Meat Atlas 2021, a report that documents the methods and impacts of the meat industry, naming and shaming the small handful of companies that control it. Read More

One megaship - the Ever Given operated by Evergreen Marine of Taiwan - single-handedly blocked as much as 12 percent of global shipping last week when it got stuck in the Suez canal en route from the port of Ningbo in China to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Read More

MV Wakashio, a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier owned by Nagashiki Shipping and chartered by Mitsui OSK Lines, hit a coral reef off the coast of Mauritius in late July. Over the course of the next few weeks, the vessel split in two spilling fuel oil and creating an ecological disaster. Four separate and ongoing investigations are still trying to unravel exactly what happened to the MV Wakashio and how to determine who has to pay how much for the damage. Read More

Amazon’s relentless expansion around the world has met with serious headwinds in India and in Europe where the company’s aggressive online sales practices are being met with court challenges and government investigations. Read More