Our partners
We work with partners worldwide who share an interest in using innovative avenues to improve human rights enforcement and respect for the rule of law in the global economy. We work within several major networks of organizations collaborating on human rights issues. Our specific partnerships range from lawyers who co-counsel our cases to informal information sharing and cooperation.
Partner Highlight
A passionate American-French attorney, Aloysia has dedicated herself to the cause of corporate accountability after witnessing the destructive impact of corporations on both the environment and human rights in the Amazon Forest. Her journey into this field began during her pursuit of an LLM at New York University School of Law, where she joined forces with International Rights Advocates.
With a passion for litigation, Aloysia enjoys working on both domestic and international cases, as well as acting as a bridge between common law and civil law legal cultures. We used these skills to develop a ground-breaking lawsuit against a major French supermarket chain that failed to comply with the new French due diligence law.
Although Aloysia is presently engaged in the UN system, known for its diplomatic approach, her dedication to collaborating with International Rights Advocates for those who have suffered human rights abuses in global supply chains persists.
Aloysia Sonnet
Ange Aboa
A respected journalist based in Cote D’Ivoire. He is at the forefront of reporting the facts on the decades of abuse of child laborers working on cocoa plantations for the major cocoa producers of the world. He is also an expert on the structure and operation of the "cocoa cartel," the major cocoa companies that operate under the umbrella of the World Cocoa Foundation. Ange's willingness to share his expertise with IRAdvocates allowed us to hit the ground running in our research on a cocoa production system that is dependent upon child slavery.
Kathleen Ruff
Kathleen has been a strong supporter of IRAdvocates’ work since its inception and she is now using her vast experience to help IRAdvocates reach new communities to join and support our work. Kathleen worked extensively in the field of human rights. She was Director of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission and director of the Canadian Court Challenges Program. She has worked with health scientists and civil society organisations to challenge corporate wrongdoing and impunity that is causing egregious harm to populations overseas. She received the medal of the Quebec National Assembly, the Canadian Public Health Association’s National Public Health Hero Award and the Appreciation Award from the Asian Citizens Center for Environmental Health for her work to end Canada's export of asbestos to developing countries. She is an honorary fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini.
Miki Mistrati
A filmmaker who has educated millions of people about child slavery in cocoa production with his two films, The Dark Side of Chocolate and Shady Chocolate. IRAdvocates is collaborating with Miki and Ange Aboa on a new film, The Chocolate War, focusing on IRAdvocates' legal battles against Nestlé and Cargill. The film is produced by Helle Faber, CEO of Made in Copenhagen Productions.
The Strategic Litigation Listserv
STL is a network of organizations and individuals working collaboratively on human trafficking issues that the Human Trafficking Legal Center hosts. Together we share information on legal strategies to confront Human Trafficking, conduct education programs, and provide legal briefs on crucial issues.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Earth Rights International (ERI).
In 1996, IRAdvocates, CCR, and ERI, along with several prominent human rights lawyers, including Paul Hoffman and Dan Stormer, brought the first case under the ATS against a corporation, Unocal (formerly Union Oil of California), for using forced labor in Burma (now Myanmar) to build a natural gas pipeline. Unocal, along with the French oil giant, Total, joined a venture with the brutal Burmese military regime, which rounded up villagers and forced them to clear the jungle and do other supporting work for the pipeline construction. The case was ultimately settled under very favorable terms, and IRAdvocates is still working with these partners on many cases. Paul Hoffman, in particular, has been a substantial contributor to IRAdvocates' cases, serving as co-counsel in our child slavery case against Nestlé and Cargill and our torture and extrajudicial killing case against Exxon Mobil.
Abdoulaye Macko
A Malian attorney who specializes in trafficking and slavery issues in West Africa. Macko began his mission when he was the Counsel General at the Malian Embassy in Cote D'Ivoire. He could not avoid seeing that young children trafficked from his native Mali were arriving in large numbers to harvest cocoa on the plantations of Cote D'Ivoire. Macko left his position at the Embassy to focus his energies on helping the child victims of trafficking and forced labor. Macko has rescued many children from slave-like conditions forcibly harvesting cocoa and has introduced them to IRAdvocates, which now represents several of them in our pending child slavery cases against Nestlé, Cargill, Mars, Hershey, Mondelēz, Barry Callebaut, and Olam.
International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR)
An extensive network of organizations, including foundations and individuals worldwide, who collaborate on both legal and campaign strategies to achieve concrete progress on corporate accountability in the global economy.
Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL)
A relatively new organization that focuses on exploring new avenues for corporate accountability, such as software licensing, trade law, and antitrust law. Before starting CAL, its founder and Executive Director, Charity Ryerson, was an attorney with IRAdvocates for several years, and before that, was a paralegal with us.
The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) Group
ATS is an informal organization of over 40 experienced human rights lawyers who work with the ATS and other legal avenues to use the courts to hold corporations and individuals accountable for human rights violations in the global economy. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights hosts the network. Members share legal briefings, offer advice to each other, and meet annually to discuss the state of human rights law.
Ivan Otero Mendoza
A prominent Colombia lawyer and law professor who works from Valledupar, Colombia. He has risked his life to stand up for victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia and currently serves as co-counsel in two important IRAdvocates cases against Drummond Coal and Chiquita Brands International. These companies provided money and other assistance to a terrorist paramilitary group in Colombia, the AUC, to receive "security" from the armed group. As part of its collaboration with the companies, the AUC "secured" Drummond's coal mine and rail line, as well as Chiquita's banana plantations, by murdering thousands of innocent civilians suspected of being sympathetic to leftist groups in the area. Ivan's creative and innovative legal work in Colombia has been essential to these cases.
Goodweave
One of the few examples of ethical and workable independent monitoring and certification systems. Goodweave primarily operates to monitor child labor in the production of hand-knotted carpets in South Asia and certifies carpets that are child labor free with a Goodweave label. Terry Collingsworth was one of the founders of Goodweave's predecessor entity, Rugmark, and works closely on child labor issues with Nina Smith, Goodweave's Executive Director.
Sherpa
A French NGO that, like IRAdvocates, is devoted to using the rule of law to hold European companies accountable for human rights violations in their supply chains. When our predecessor organization ILRF launched the first corporate ATS case in 1996 against Unocal, Sherpa used French law to sue Unocal's partner Total, the French oil giant. We collaborated on the cases, and both were settled under favorable terms. We continue to collaborate on issues of child labor in cocoa harvesting and components for electronic devices.
Cohen, Milstein, Sellers, and Toll
A Washington, D.C.-based law firm with a primary focus on securities, employment, and antitrust law. They also have a department that focuses on human rights issues headed by partner Agnieszka Frysman. Cohen Milstein joined a case IRAdvocates initiated against Exxon Mobil for torture and extrajudicial killings of innocent villagers by its security forces in Aceh, Indonesia, where Exxon has a major natural gas liquefication facility. Since joining, Cohen Milstein took the lead role in getting this crucial corporate accountability case ready for trial.
IRAdvocates is searching for additional partners, as well as multinational companies willing to break with the pack and work with us to improve their supply chains. We will then work with them to promote a model company that our members, allies, and consumers can proudly reward with their business.
The Child Labor Coalition (CLC)
IRAdvocates is a major participant in the CLC, a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of over 100 organizations worldwide that share information, organize joint actions, and support member initiatives that help end global child labor.