Judge Lets Unocal Ask State Dept. to Intervene in Myanmar Lawsuit

A Los Angeles judge Thursday granted a request by Unocal to ask the State Department to intervene in a lawsuit by Myanmar villagers who allege that the Myanmar military protecting a Unocal pipeline project dragooned villagers into slave labor, attorneys said.

The Unocal request comes on the heels of a State Department letter urging dismissal of a similar lawsuit involving an Exxon Mobil project in Indonesia.

The government said letting that case go to trial would harm the national interest, including the war on terrorism, and efforts to improve the Indonesian military’s record of human rights abuses.

The suit against Exxon Mobil is on behalf of 11 Indonesian villagers who claim that Indonesian government troops protecting an Exxon plant conducted torture, rape, kidnappings and murder.

Human rights advocates blasted the State Department’s letter as a sellout of human rights in the name of the global war on terrorism and warned that it would set a dangerous precedent in other litigation. The California decision suggests that such a precedent has been set, and opens the possibility that other companies being sued for alleged overseas abuses also may seek support from the State Department.

In court papers, Unocal argued that the cases are similar in their efforts to hold U.S. corporations accountable for misdeeds of foreign militaries in foreign lands.

“As in Exxon Mobil, the litigation seeks to penalize an American company for investing in a country with a record of human rights abuses,” Unocal said. “It could have a chilling effect on investment and efforts to induce the host country to improve human rights.”

In 1997, when Unocal was being sued in federal court over the same issues, the company also requested a State Department opinion. Noting that evidence was limited because the case had just begun, the government issued a letter, saying, “The adjudication of the claims based on allegations of torture and slavery would not prejudice or impede the conduct of U.S. foreign relations with the current government” of Myanmar.

“I would be very surprised if the State Department would take a position contrary to what it did” in the 1997 Unocal case, said Paul Hoffman, a Los Angeles lawyer representing some of the Myanmar plaintiffs in the Unocal case.

“There’s just no basis for the State Department to say that a judgment against Unocal in this case would undermine U.S. foreign policy in any way,” Hoffman said.

Unocal succeeded in having that case dismissed in 2000, after Judge Ronald Lew found no evidence that Unocal sought to employ forced or slave labor and that it had expressed concern about the practice.

Unocal now is being sued in state court, with the issues revolving around whether a California corporation can be sued over acts of a foreign government.

Like Exxon Mobil, Unocal does not confirm or deny that violations took place at the hands of foreign militaries, but says the company did nothing wrong. “Unocal was simply an investor along with three others in the project,” spokesman Barry Lane said.

Once it receives the court’s request, the State Department has 30 days to issue a letter. As in the Exxon case, the court is not bound to follow the government’s position.

Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney also moved the Unocal trial from Sept. 26 to Feb. 4.

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Times staff writer Lisa Girion in Los Angeles contributed to this report.