Tyler Giannini

1995

Tyler Giannini

Earth Rights International

http://www.earthrights.org

Washington D.C., United States

Civil and Human Rights, Environment

The Bold Idea:

Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment -- including the right to a healthy environment, the right to speak out and act to protect the environment, and the right to participate in development. Too many people in the world are denied those rights.

In Burma, citizens are unable to participate in decisions about their environment, and resistance often means torture or death. Adding insult to injury, these people are often forced to help build those very development projects that destroy their homelands. They suffer a variety of human rights abuses, including forced labor, rape, torture, murder, and relocation, as a direct consequence of the environmental destruction they never authorized. The government regime is the main reason why human rights and the environment are such cheap currency in Burma.

Earth Rights International (ERI) is one of the only organizations to assemble on-the-ground information about the human rights and environmental situation inside the country. The Burma Project is just one example of the various programs ERI runs. Each project is designed to promote and protect earth rights in different ways: by using the US or international legal system as a tool for change; by training and educating affected peoples so they become their own best advocates; by documenting, writing about, and publicizing abuses; by engaging international institutions in the struggle to censure earth rights abusers; and by strengthening networks and coalitions so that a united front against earth right violations can be provided.

Working as a collection of activists, organizers, and lawyers with expertise in human rights, the environment, and corporate and government accountability, ERI has made some major accomplishments since its founding. Its work has resulted in a landmark lawsuit, Doe v. Unocal Corp, (the first time a US court has granted jurisdiction over a private corporation for human rights abuses committed in a foreign land) and the creation of several schools for future activists in Southeast Asia and in the Amazon.

Biography:

Tyler Giannini joined the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School in 2004 as Clinical Advocacy Fellow. Prior to coming to the Law School, Tyler was co-director of EarthRights International (ERI), an organization at the forefront of efforts to link human rights and environmental protection. As a founder of ERI, Giannini spent the past decade in Thailand conducting investigative fact-finding efforts on human rights abuses in Burma and groundbreaking corporate accountability litigation. In particular, Giannini was co-counsel in the landmark Doe v. Unocal litigation; the case sought to hold the corporation accountable for abuses surrounding the Yadana gas pipeline project in Burma, and was settled in early 2005. Giannini holds graduate degrees in law and foreign policy from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the law review. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar, and has co-authored several major publications including Total Denial Continues: Earth Rights Abuses along the Yadana and Yetagun Pipelines in Burma and Earth Rights: Linking the Quests for Human Rights and Environmental Protection.