Charter Challenge - efforts to rescind corporate charter of Unocal - Brief Article

Sierra, Sept, 1999

When people commit multiple crimes, they end up in prison. When corporations--persons under the law, after all--do the same, they post huge profits.

Now a coalition of environmental, human rights, and women's groups are petitioning California to revoke the corporate charter of Unocal. Dubbing the oil giant a "dangerous scofflaw corporation," they point to pollution from its refineries; human-rights abuses by its government partners in Afghanistan and Burma, including the use of slave labor; and hundreds of violations of workplace health and safety rules here at home. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer recently denied the petition; backers are now suing to force him to reconsider.