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AID Berkeley, the Association for India’s Development’s (AID) newest chapter, began the year in success on a Thursday in early March with a panel discussion on “Corporate Responsibility in the Global South (Asia, Africa, South America)” at University of California Berkeley’s I-House (International House), part of an ongoing I-House Globalization Series. Dr. Darren Zook of UC Berkeley’s renowned Political Science department and Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of the influential Bay Area based organization CorpWatch, were the invited panelists. In choosing this topic, AID Berkeley volunteers wanted to highlight the ongoing campaign against the miscarriage of justice in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. Dr. Darren Zook opened the evening’s discussion by defining the human rights of those working for large multinational corporations in the Global South and suggesting ways for community members to hold corporations accountable. Next, Pratap Chatterjee questioned the degree of accountability to which corporations in a globalized world are held and gave many vivid examples of the liberties U.S. corporations have taken in Latin America and now Iraq, citing CorpWatch’s own initiatives. The audience included UC Berkeley law and other students, members of local development organizations, and East Bay residents, all of whom participated with vigor in the discussions following the presentations. A lawyer from Kenya asked how an African country whose national budget was a fraction of a multinational corporation could realistically take legal action against a corporate powerhouse violating its laws. A South Asian student wondered if non-profit based efforts to monitor multinational corporations would reduce the investment incentive for large multinational corporations. Another UC Berkeley graduate student also argued that many workers in the Global South resent the efforts of organizations like CorpWatch, because for them the multinational corporations mean many positive improvements in their lives. Panelists and audience members continued to disagree about corporate responsibility in the Global South, with nary an agreement in sight. In fact, I-House Coordinators had to end the discussion after two hours, as people seemed ready to discuss the matter into the next morning. The free flow of ideas and the intensity of the exchange proved that the tradition of impassioned debate continues alive and well in Berkeley, California. --- Akhila Takkallapalli is a junior at UC Berkeley majoring in Political Economy of Industrial Societies and South Asian Studies. She is a volunteer in the new Berkeley chapter. Akhila hopes to enter the field of law after graduation. |
