Unocal Corp. said Monday that it would settle landmark human rights lawsuits brought by 15 villagers from Myanmar who claimed it was responsible for forced labor, rapes and a murder allegedly committed by soldiers along the route of a natural gas pipeline in the Southeast Asian nation.
Terms of the settlement are still being negotiated, and neither Unocal nor lawyers representing the plaintiffs would disclose details. In a joint statement, the two sides said the El Segundo-based energy company would pay the plaintiffs an unspecified amount of money and fund programs to improve living conditions for people from the region surrounding the $1.2-billion pipeline and "who may have suffered hardships."
The case against Unocal was seen as a key test for human rights activists who want to hold multinationals responsible in U.S. courts for atrocities committed in other countries. About three dozen similar suits have been filed in the last 11 years against other major U.S. corporations, including ChevronTexaco Corp., Ford Motor Co. and IBM Corp.
None has gone to trial, and none has moved as far along in the judicial system as the Unocal suits, filed in 1996. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had been scheduled to hear arguments Monday on whether the case should go to trial.
A settlement would be a breakthrough. "Nobody can treat these cases as a joke anymore," said Elliot Schrage, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who lectures on the litigation trend at Columbia University's business and law schools.
U.S. business groups and the Bush administration have pressed the courts to turn back the tide of litigation from abroad, and other experts said a settlement in such a high-profile case could encourage lawyers to file more and broader human rights abuse suits.
"Major multinationals are terrified," said Susan Aaronson, director of the Kenan Institute's Washington Center for Globalization Studies. "They are absolutely terrified."
For eight years, Unocal vigorously defended itself against the claims that it turned a blind eye to violent acts allegedly committed by soldiers assigned to guard the pipeline, in which Unocal is a partner with the French oil company Total and the military junta that rules the country formerly known as Burma.
Unocal was steadfast in its argument that it shouldn't be held liable for alleged abuses by the soldiers but acknowledged that they had a role in securing the pipeline corridor.
