| Popis: |
This chapter explores corporate accountability for attacks against human rights defenders. For this, it examines the case of Indigenous Lenca leader Berta Cáceres, a co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (COPINH). In 2016, she was killed in reprisal for her struggle against the human rights abuses committed in connection to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project, in the Gualcarque river, in Lenca territory. This chapter focuses on how such apparently ‘weak’ actors -- Berta’s family and organisation -- managed to achieve unprecedented progress in their search for justice for the killing of Berta Cáceres. The investigation has revealed the attack as a reprisal against her for defending human rights. It further uncovered the role of powerful economic actors in her killing. Prominent representatives of the Honduran company Desarrollo Energéticos SA (DESA), owners of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project, are now facing justice. For this analysis, the chapter draws on the Archimedes’ Lever model to examine blocks and opportunities for corporate accountability for attacks against human rights defenders in a contemporary context, something that has not been explored before. Berta was killed but her impact defending human rights lives on. |
