Events | 2010.03.17
When law firms exploit human rights | Afua Hirsch
Rich law firms that embrace human rights while making fortunes representing vulture funds give lawyers who care a bad name
One thing that keeps cropping up when I write about human rights is the fact that I\'m a lawyer. "Human rights are just money-spinners for lawyers," one Cif commentator wrote. Actually more than one. There is clearly a belief out there that the main accomplishment of turning human rights into law has been to enrich the legal profession.
It won\'t surprise you that I believe many lawyers argue human rights cases because they actually believe in them. If you\'ve been following any of the Guardian\'s coverage of what\'s happening in legal aid, you\'ll know that there is a significant and often-ignored army of young lawyers working for next to nothing to help difficult clients with complex needs who face violations of their fundamental rights at the hands of an ever-powerful executive.
Having said all this, there is another side to the law-meets-human-rights phenomenon: the large corporation. It has become increasingly popular for the so-called "magic circle" – the wealthiest international law firms whose turnover can reach up to £1bn a year – to embrace human rights too.
When I say "embrace", I partly mean trumpeting their commitment to human rights in glossy annual reports and corporate social responsibility reviews. You\'d be hard-pressed now to find a significant multinational law firm that doesn\'t boast of some programme to help impoverished local communities, often right on the doorstep of their gleaming city towers, or in the developing world.
I should profess an interest at this stage because I have worked with Advocates for International Development – an organisation that draws on the resources of these large firms to provide voluntary legal assistance to poor countries in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. When I organised a project in Liberia to help war-fatigued local journalists, the richest law firm of them all, Clifford Chance, allowed one of their amazing secretaries to help me for free, took on the cost of printing all the documents and generally used their deep pockets to help keep the project going.
Which only makes it more painful to watch aforementioned Liberia screwed at the hands of another law firm that professes its commitment to human rights.
US firm Dechert, which has a strong presence in London, represented two vulture funds at the high court in London last year, winning a $20m award against Liberia. Vulture funds have earned their name by snapping up sovereign debt of highly indebted countries, often in Africa, at bargain prices, then demanding the full amount back.
For a country such as Liberia, held together at the seams after 15 years of war by international assistance and a good deal of UK taxpayers\' money, it\'s a case of public funding and untold goodwill going in, rich law firm and client sucking it back out. And all under the watchful eye of the English courts.
Last week, parliament considered legislation to curb the ability of vulture funds to sue through British courts. The Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill was introduced by Labour MP Andrew Gwynne and thwarted by a Tory MP . The Jubilee Debt Campaign, which has been waging a major battle against vulture funds, last week staged a protest outside the London office of US firm Dechert to no avail. So far, so depressing.
But Dechert, the law firm profiting from all this, is typical of the large corporation that generates so much cynicism about human rights. Earlier this month, it sponsored a summit on global ethics in New York. It is a member of Advocates for International Development, no doubt supporting lawyers like me who have genuinely tried to do something useful in the developing world. It is presumably funding these activities by the kind of profitable work that includes representing vulture funds in a naked exploitation of poverty.
Which leaves us all in an ethically ambiguous place. And for those keen on accusing lawyers of being incapable of believing in anything, it must be a lot like Christmas.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]ers-human-rights-vulture-funds
