Settlement in works over human rights case involving Unocal

Settlement in works over human rights case involving Unocal

Paul Chavez, Associated Press, Los Angeles, California

Oil giant Unocal Corp. has reached an agreement in principle
to settle human rights lawsuits involving allegations of enslaved
labor during a 1990s pipeline project in Southeast Asia, a
company spokesman said late on Sunday.

The lawsuits maintained that El Segundo-based Unocal should be
held liable for the alleged enslavement of villagers during
construction of a natural gas pipeline in the 1990s in Myanmar,
the isolated country also known as Burma.

The full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had
been scheduled to hear arguments on the case Monday afternoon in
Pasadena, but the hearing was canceled at the request of both
parties, Unocal spokesman Barry Lane said on Sunday night.

Human rights lawyers representing 14 anonymous villagers also
alleged in the lawsuits that Myanmar soldiers murdered a baby,
raped women and girls and forced people out of their homes to
clear the pipeline's route.

The lawsuits against the oil and gas giant have been
considered a key test for human rights activists seeking to hold
multinational corporations responsible in U.S. courts for alleged
atrocities committed abroad.

Discussions to settle the lawsuits were ongoing and no details
were being immediately released, Lane said.

Unocal has consistently denied that any human rights
violations occurred during the construction of the US$1.2 billion
Yadana pipeline.

Rick Herz, litigation director for EarthRights International,
which represents the plaintiffs, declined to comment and Daniel
Stormer, another lawyer for the plaintiffs, did not immediately
return a telephone call. A telephone call made to Unocal lead
attorney Daniel Petrocelli was not immediately returned.

The case was first filed in Los Angeles federal court in 1996.
A federal judge dismissed it, prompting the plaintiffs to pursue
their claims in state court.

The federal case, which relies on the 1789 Alien Tort Claims
Act that was originally enacted to prosecute pirates, was
reinstated in 2002 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S.
Supreme Court in June ruled that certain types of cases involving
violations of international law could be pursued in federal
courts under the obscure act.

A judge presiding over the state case had set a June 2005
trial date.