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Yahoo! Asks That Chinese Rights Suit Be Dismissed
Eviliza writes that Yahoo! is asking that the suit filed against it over the infringement of a Chinese journalist's civil rights be dismissed in US courts this week. The company has stated that it had no choice but to give up the journalist's information, as it's Chinese subsidiary is subject to Chinese laws. "'Defendants cannot be expected, let alone ordered to violate another nation's laws,' the company said in its filing. But Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights said the company had failed to meet its ethical responsibilities. 'Even if it was lawful in China, that does not take away from Yahoo's obligation to follow not just Chinese law, but US law and international legal standards as well, when they do business abroad,' he said."
It is a good thing they weren't around to do business in Pol Pot's Cambodia. "We had no choice, we couldn't do business there unless we helped them kill all the intellectuals."
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I don't see the relevance. Perhaps you meant, "How would Chinese feel if some Chinese company doing business in the U.S. claimed that Chinese law should not be upheld in the U.S.?"
Since the PRC government is more than willing to prosecute Chinese nationals for violations of Chinese law in parts of the world where the PRC does not have jurisdiction, this is still a bad comparison to make, especially since the U.S. will do the same thing in certain instances.
The question is: if the U.S. government is willing to prosecute some violations of U.S. law overseas, why not others?
And the answer is simple: Yahoo (and fuck you, marketdroids, I'm not using your infantile punctuation) has a better lobbyist presence than child molesters.
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I think you'd better reconsider your analogy. It is the West that is addicted to the crack here, and is willing to sell out on every principal that it once fought so hard to preserve for cheap toothpaste, cheap toys and cheap dog food.
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Really? Last I checked, it was still illegal for Americans to violate human rights, even while overseas. Also, hasn't the "compelled to by the government" defense been pretty thoroughly rejected already?
Of course, this may have changed during the last seven years, just like the government's understanding of habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment, so perhaps you're right.
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Not as simple as that. Yahoo's employees in China could have been arrested if they didn't comply. Thus, it was a case of who Yahoo allows to get screwed -- their employees, or some people to which they have no connection. They made the best choice, to protect their employees.
The *right* choice would have been to not get into that situation in the first place. When it comes to doing business in China, the only ethical move is not to play. But very few businesses are that ethical...or have any ethics at all, where the potential for profit exists.
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Exactly. I see this variety of doublethink at farmers' markets up here. Many people in this moneyed college town, who will fulminate endlessly about the need for agriculture companies to stop polluting and start paying their workers a living wage, are somehow offended that a local organic farmer is charging $4/lb for tomatoes. "But I can get tomatoes at the store for less than half that!"
Lots of folks preach a good sermon, but aren't willing to make the sacrifices to put their words into action.
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I actually feel bad for Yahoo in a way.
So do I, until I remember that they're in China through choice.
All of these western companies set up shop in China and then say "well, we have to abide by local laws" when somebody complains about them colluding with the Chinese authorities. There's an easy solution: don't set up shop in China. You won't win anyway.
If all of the western corporations steered well clear of China (and other questionable regimes), and indeed Chinese companies, it would send a far stronger message than anything any human rights organisation would do, and shed an extremely favourable light upon the western corporations. Call it a voluntary trade sanction if you will.
As it stands, human rights laws are flouted the world over because corporations and governments get away with it. If everybody stopped doing business with the companies and regimes responsible, the world would be a slightly nicer place.
Nothing says "fuck you and your oppressive dictatorial policies" than the rest of the world refusing to take part in your GDP growth exercise: China's capital reserves wouldn't last forever, after all.
Those examples are cases where one goes to another country and does something that is not expressly prohibited by local laws. In Yahoo's case, they simply were avoiding breaking the foreign law. Different situations. Even so, I would say it is still wrong to prosecute someone for breaking a US law while abroad. Just because Canada does it doesn't make it right. ;)
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