BERLIN: Hardly any country in the world hosts as many companies accused of severe human rights violations as Germany, according to a recent survey by the University of Maastricht.
Of 1,800 human rights violations analysed by the University of Maastricht, 87 can be traced to German companies.
This places Germany in fifth position, according to the number of such cases, behind the United States (511 cases reported), the United Kingdom (198), Canada (110) and China (94).
The list of potential human rights violations is long and includes cases such as water pollution in Peru, due to copper mining for car manufacturing, land expulsions in Uganda for a coffee plantation, villages flooded by a dam in Sudan, and exploitation of workers in the apparel industry.
In all of these cases, German companies were involved either directly or indirectly, according to complaints from NGOs, which were recently backed up by the University of Maastricht’s global comparative study.
In Germany, imports of primary raw materials for the automobile and chemicals industry faces the most criticism from civil society.
Production in these sectors takes place under “conditions that are problematic for human rights”, says a recent study from the German NGOs Germanwatch and Misereor.
Furthermore, such cases are often found in countries with weak government structures and a high susceptibility to corruption, the study indicates.
