CorpWatch

CorpWatch (formerly: TRAC Transnational Resource & Action Center) is a research group based in Oakland, California, USA. In their description, the group works to foster global justice, independent media activism and democratic control over corporations. The group is notable for its campaigns against Nike sweatshops, private military contractors, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations Global Compact. CorpWatch gained notoriety when it broke the story of the Nike sweatshop scandal in Vietnam by releasing a confidential audit. Business Week criticized the group for its selectively misleading partisan reports; for example, in their reports on Enron Corpwatch reports only donations of Enron to Republican candidates, completely omitting donations to Democratic candidates.»http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2002/tc20020719_5744.htm

Recent Projects

• Crocodyl: Pratap Chatterjee, author of »Iraq Inc, Program Director and Managing Editor »http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11316 started a project called Crocodyl, with Phil Mattera of the Corporate Research Project, Charlie Cray of the Center for Corporate Policy and Tonya Hennessey of CorpWatch. The project aims to research corporations using wiki technology and global South/North collaboration and is built on an open content model; all contributions are licensed under Creative Commons Share Alike and also under the GNU Free Documentation License. The Project Manager of Crocodyl is Ian Elwood, and its Editors are Phil Mattera, Charlie Cray, Tonya Hennessey and Pratap Chatterjee.

• War Comes Home: Seven Years After the Taliban: CorpWatch Program Director and Managing Editor Pratap Chatterjee and Project Director Tonya Hennessey launched an investigation into the real costs of the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan with America's first listener-sponsored radio station KPFA Radio, as the next phase of their »War Comes Home website, headed up by KPFA Program Director Sasha Lilley. Chatterjee and Nobu Sakamoto reported from Afghanistan immediately following the invasion and returned to the country as part of the collaboration between CorpWatch and KPFA Radio.

References