Wherever we live, “the economy” demands a lot from citizens. Be it cuts in education and health spending, longer working hours without pay increases, or the free exploitation of nature—there is hardly a political imposition that is not declared an economic necessity and therefore without alternative. The perennial “success” of this economic system relies on promises of consumption, global expansion and powerful networks as well as  mechanisms to keep those people  invisible and voiceless who shoulder the heaviest burden. This was illustrated once again in the trial against the Lafarge Group in Paris, where high-paid corporate lawyers filled the courtroom, while the victims – former Syrian employees – were still not allowed to join the case as civil parties. “They should not be allowed to speak because their presence would distort the proceedings through inappropriate emotional reactions,” said Lafarge's lawyers.  

What is vilified here as “distortion” is an urgently needed perspective: the testimony of the former Syrian workers make it unmistakably clear that the Lafarge Group was more willing to put their lives at risk than to forgo profits. Similarly egregious are the allegations against the Total Group and its business practices in Mozambique: complicity in war crimes, torture, and enforced disappearances. The expected response from the company: “We knew nothing about it” even though the acts were committed at the main entrance of the company’s premises.  

Yet again, it is confirmation of the human cost when “corporate responsibility” goes unchecked. Still, a powerful corporate lobby would like to see all supply chain laws abolished sooner rather than later in favor of companies regulating themselves. Because it is precisely these laws that enable banana workers, for example, on a plantation in Costa Rica, to get the German supermarket chain Aldi Süd to the table to negotiate decent wages. And it isn’t just about more money for the workers. These laws also mean it’s becoming increasingly difficult to silence the people producing consumer goods for the global North – and who, like no one else, can bear witness to the real injustices of this economic system. 

On 17 November, ECCHR filed a criminal complaint in France against TotalEnergies for complicity in war crimes, torture, and enforced disappearance in Mozambique. As the oil giant plans to restart operations, the complaint seeks justice for the "container massacre" at its gas facility between July and September 2021. Following an insurgent attack in March 2021, the Mozambican army – including the Joint Task Force directly supported by TotalEnergies – allegedly detained dozens of fleeing civilians in metal containers. Detainees were reportedly tortured, subjected to enforced disappearance, and some were executed. The final 26 detainees were released only in September 2021. 

The Joint Task Force was established specifically to protect TotalEnergies' operations through a 2020 agreement with the Mozambican government. Internal company documents reveal TotalEnergies knew of serious human rights violations committed by the Joint Task Force before the massacre. Despite this knowledge, the company continued providing accommodation, food, equipment, and bonuses to the task force members. TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG is among  Africa's largest gas projects. This complaint represents an important step towards justice for communities whose rights and lives have been destroyed by corporate interests. Companies that enable crimes in conflict zones can – and must – be held accountable.

More information about the case here.

Nearly a decade after filing criminal charges, Lafarge's former Syrian employees are finally being heard. The historic trial in Paris—the first against a multinational corporation for financing terrorism – has moved beyond procedural battles into testimonies revealing what happened when the French cement giant allegedly paid over 5 million euros to armed groups, including ISIS, to keep operating during Syria's civil war. 

After a rocky start with procedural wrangling, the court made clear no further delays would be tolerated. Facing charges are Lafarge SA (now part of Holcim), four former top executives, and four managers and intermediaries. For weeks, defense teams worked to minimize responsibility, framing Lafarge's actions as pragmatic decisions under impossible circumstances. The narratives presented by the defendants themselves in response to intensive cross-examinations exposed the racist undertones and the cynicism with which they operate. Afterwards, the Syrian workers testified. They described kidnappings, death threats, and Lafarge’s complete disregard for their lives and personal security. One prosecutor thanked them for providing "a striking picture of Syria, because, until now, that mirror has been distorted" by the defense. 

Parallel investigations continue against Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity. The armed groups Lafarge allegedly financed committed grave atrocities, including genocide against the Yazidis. ECCHR, a civil party in this case, has been publishing weekly trial reports, documenting the arguments, atmosphere, and the unfolding legal battle. The date for the judgement should be announced following the final hearing on 19 December. The decision should provide clarity about how corporations can be held accountable in conflict zones – and whether all workers' lives matter equally under the law.

Read our weekly trial reports and our Q&A – the last report will be published on 22 December.

At the COP in Belém, Brazil, Miriam Saage-Maaß and Cristina Hernandez Hurtado were on the ground to highlight the responsibility of states and corporations in the climate crisis. While the official negotiations were dominated by PR strategies and non-binding promises, the concurrent civil society events made clear what is really at stake: people in the Global South are heavily suffering the consequences of the climate crisis, while companies and governments continue to shirk their responsibilities. These spaces were not only forums for exchange, where alternative approaches to climate justice, legal strategies, and concrete demands for corporate accountability were discussed, but also spaces for mobilization: scientists, activists, and affected communities came together to collectively put pressure on decision-makers. The COP clearly shows: voluntary measures are not enough. We need binding rules that hold corporations and states accountable for human rights violations and environmental harm – and we must put the perspectives of those affected at the center. 

Shortly after returning from Brazil, ECCHR colleagues turned their attention to the unequal distribution of responsibility and impacts of the climate crisis during the “On Planetary Justice” Climate Days organised by Berlin’s HAU theater. The panelists of the “On Justice” discussion series asked the crucial question: can we finally protect nature from ourselves? In this context, Cristina Hernandez Hurtado called for recognizing rivers, forests, and ecosystems as legal subjects – a radical step against decades of exploitation. The “People’s Court for Climate Trials” heard cases from Pakistan, Indonesia, Peru, Germany, Switzerland, and Bangladesh. The audience and the 15-member tribunal discussed the potentials and limits of climate litigation in a shared struggle for planetary justice. Clara Gonzales presented the Climate Cost Case, while Miriam Saage-Maaß co-chaired the session. 

The On Justice #8 podcast will soon be available here.

Conservative EU lawmakers have chosen to give in to the corporate deregulation campaign. In collaboration with the far-right, they agreed to gut the corporate due diligence directive (CSDDD) before it had even gotten started. The new directive is said to "unburden" the large majority of companies that previously fell under the scope of the directive, releasing them from an EU-wide civil liability regime as well as from legally binding climate policy obligations. Instead, workers, trade unions and communities worldwide are being “re-burdened”, says Lisa Pitz. As a directive, CSDDD is not directly applicable but must be transposed into national law. In Germany, for example, by revising the existing Supply Chain Act (LkSG). However, due to the so-called prohibition of regression or deterioration, legislators are prohibited from lowering the current level of due diligence obligations.  According to these provisions, Germany may not fall below the current level of protection provided by the Supply Chain Act, or exclude companies previously covered by its application. 

How the LkSG should be applied to effectively unburden garment workers in Pakistan is the topic of a new report we published together with our Pakistani trade union partners NTUF and the German NGO, femnet. It clearly shows that large textile brands like ZARA or KiK still only superficially comply with labor and human rights obligations along their supply chains. The companies' internal complaint procedures are simply bureaucratic window dressing. Anyone who takes their corporate due diligence obligations seriously must negotiate with employees and unions on an equal footing, says co-author, Annabell Brüggemann.

Read our Pakistan Brand Report
Read Lisa Pitz` comment on CSDDD

Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri has been in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since December 1. His transfer by the German authorities is the first successful surrender of a suspect in the Libya Situation since the ICC began its investigations in 2011. El Hishri is a senior member of the Special Deterrence Force for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime (“Al-Radaa”) under the Libyan Presidential Council. This powerful armed group operates detention sites across western Libya, including Mitiga Prison, where El Hishri is alleged to have held a leadership position. According to the ICC arrest warrant, he is suspected of committing or overseeing crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, torture, cruel treatment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence.

The survivors of these crimes now expect to be meaningfully involved in the proceedings. As our partner David Yambio put it, “regardless of where they are or what passport they hold.” To avoid repeating the long-standing accountability gap concerning crimes against migrants and refugees, this important first trial in the Libya Situation must include them. Especially in times of unprecedented attacks on the Court, this development underscores the importance of strong and principled State cooperation with the Court and of ensuring that its mandate under international law is carried out effectively.

Read our joint civil society statement about expectations for the proceedings.

At the beginning of December, representatives of the International Criminal Court’s 125 member states, NGOs, academics, and ICC staff gathered in The Hague, Netherlands. The annual Assembly of States Parties sets the course for the work of the Court, which remains a particular challenge in view of the ongoing pressure from US sanctions against the ICC, its staff, and NGOs. The effectiveness of international criminal justice is evident not only in this backlash from the US, but also in the numerous side events that brought together the international criminal law community. Many of them were co-organized with our partners from the Global Initiative Against Impunity.

ECCHR highlighted the upcoming trial of a Libyan defendant from the perspective of migrant victims and discussed the status of the investigation into Syrian war crimes. Other focal points included strengthening the prohibition of violence enshrined in the UN Charter through expanded jurisdiction over crimes of aggression and supporting Palestinian human rights organizations that continue their work with the Court despite US sanctions. On the occasion of the film “Towards a Cosmopolitan War Crimes Theory,” Wolfgang Kaleck and other experts discussed the fundamental question whether criminal law is the appropriate tool to address mass atrocities and other war crimes. He emphasized that cosmopolitan legal practice requires comprehensive decolonization. It is these various persistent forms of lobbying for international law and for the progressive side of power, far away from the media spotlight, that have a profound and lasting effect that extends far beyond the moment.

"I will never forget how I felt when my son Khaled woke me early on the morning of December 8 saying, ‘Wake up, Mama, the regime has fallen.’ I embraced him and wept bitterly. Yes, I will celebrate this day and allow myself joy – if I am able – despite the exhaustion, pain, and anger over what has happened in Syria this year: massacres, division, and hateful rhetoric," writes Joumana Seif about the anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime in her sixth letter from Damascus. She looks back on a year in which feelings of joy and hope for the future of a liberated Syria are mixed with weariness and frustration at the ongoing violence and killings. On December 8 2024, a door that had long been closed, finally opened. Perpetrators fled, survivors returned, and mass graves were opened. But what does this mean for the prosecution of crimes?

Read Joumana Seif’s sixth letter from Damascus here. The entire series is also available on our Living Open Archive. If you like the series, you can subscribe to the mailing list. In an article for Law & Society Review, Sociologist Joachim J. Savelsberg and colleagues analyze the significance of legal proceedings held in recent years under the principle of universal jurisdiction.They address current and future accountability efforts in Syria as well as opportunities for international law as a whole.

At the end of November a new trial addressing crimes committed under the Assad regime in Syria began at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz. For the first time, the siege and starvation of Yarmouk, a former Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, is being heard by a court. The five defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eleven months after the fall of the Assad regime, the Yarmouk trial is an important contribution to the Syrian transitional justice process.

To this day, Yarmouk lies in ruins. Former residents are returning only slowly; tens of thousands were starved, murdered, and forced to flee. The hunger blockade of Yarmouk is symbolic of the Assad regime's brutal warfare and the destruction of entire neighborhoods. The Koblenz court should address these crimes – and in particular the use of starvation as a method of warfare – as part of the broader systematic repression of the civilian population rather than limiting this to a single criminal act, as the indictment proposes. Using hunger as a weapon – whether in Yarmouk, Gaza, or elsewhere – is a war crime.

More on the case

Germany reinstated blanket controls on all of its borders last year, continuing its erosion of core EU rights, in particular the right to move freely in the Schengen zone. Under the pretext of addressing so-called irregular migration, Germany resurrected border checks which largely rely on techniques of racial profiling as well as violence and which target racialized migrants and racialized European citizens and residents. Earlier this year, a Syrian refugee and human rights advocate, Sandra Alloush, who is a long-term resident in France, was on her way to Germany for a regular work trip. As German officers boarded the train, Alloush presented her French residency permit and a document confirming the renewal of her passport. However, the officers insisted Alloush could not enter Germany. She was forced off the train, violently handled, strip searched, detained and ultimately made to walk back to France. 

With the support of ECCHR, Society for Civil Rights (GFF) and European Network Against Racism (ENAR) she filed a complaint to the Administrative Court in Stuttgart challenging this violent and racist border control and arguing how Germany’s treatment of her violated national, EU and international law. At the end of November, Alloush presented her case at the European Parliament alongside MEP Mélissa Camara and Hanaa Hakiki. EU law only allows states to reintroduce border controls as an exception and in the event of a serious threat to public order or internal security. None of these conditions were met at the French-German border.

Read and watch more.

In November, Surya Deva, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, visited Germany and had some very clear demands  concerning Germany’s colonial past. He stipulated that Germany should issue an unconditional apology for the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples, and should return all human remains and artefacts of Indigenous Peoples displayed in German museums, universities and private collections. The UN expert also emphasized that reparations – not merely development aid – for the descendants of Ovaherero and Nama peoples are Germany’s legal and moral responsibility. “All these redressive steps must involve an active, free and meaningful participation of Ovaherero and Nama peoples, including women,” Surya Deva wrote in the official statement issued at the end of his visit. The document also addresses governmental and corporate responsibilities regarding nature, environment and climate, aka the triple planetary crisis. It explicitly mentions renewable energy projects both inside  and outside Germany that should “not get a free pass regarding human rights and environmental impact assessments, because renewable energy should also be responsible energy.”

More about our Namibia work

In January, the German Government will present its 16th report on its human rights politics to parliament. On that occasion the parliament's Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid will hold a public hearing to which each party represented in the committee can invite an expert in the field. Lisa Pitz is one of these experts and will provide a critical review of the effectiveness and regulatory design of supply chain legislation in Germany and the EU. After her statement, that will also be saved in the Parliament’s archive, all committee members will have the opportunity to ask questions. Amongst the other experts invited are Julia Durchow, Secretary General of Amnesty International and the researcher, Dr. Marcus Michaelsen.

14.01.26, 2 pm, Paul-Löbe-Haus, Saal 4 200, Konrad-Adenauer-Str.1, Berlin

Registration and further information (in German) 

The sniper unit within the Israeli army known as the “Ghost Unit” will be the subject of a  panel discussion at the Munich Kammerspiele theater. Members of the unit are suspected of deliberately killing Palestinian civilians. Together with Palestinian partners, ECCHR filed a criminal complaint against one of them at Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor's Office. Alexander Schwarz will discuss this and other legal questions about war crimes and genocide with the investigative journalists from Paper Trail Media who uncovered the case. The event will take place in German. 

New Date:16.01.26, 7:30 pm, Munich Kammerspiele, Maximilianstraße 26-28, Munich

More info and tickets

Starting afresh without erasing the past – this is the difficult task for societies that have endured decades of violent rule and conflict, such as Rwanda and Syria. How can such reconciliation processes succeed? And what does the concept of transitional justice mean for this? These questions will be addressed in a panel discussion with Susanne Buckley (Marburg Center for Conflict Research), Barbara Unger (Berghof Foundation Berlin), and Annelen Micus. 

20.01.26, 6 - 7:30 pm, Bonn University, Room 4.001, Lenné road 6, Bonn 

Registration

At this year's UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, Chloé Bailey and other experts from academia, civil society and business discussed international experiences with the application of due diligence laws. In view of the existing weaknesses in enforcement of these laws, the panel criticized their impending further dilution. What corporate lobbyists are packaging as a supposedly essential simplification, undermines the very core principle of corporate due diligence laws; their general binding force and effective sanctions. In addition to the damage already done, this watering down could also set a negative precedent for future legislative projects. 

Watch the video and find further information

Activists working to secure their livelihoods in the Global South are often subjected to serious threats - from both companies and government agencies. This effectively prevents them from claiming their rights. How can they protect themselves against this disenfranchisement, and how can state or private aggressors be held accountable? These questions were addressed at a side event organized by DeJusticia and ECCHR at this year's COP. 

First you are forced to flee from war, next you are imprisoned for being a refugee: this is what people from Sudan – most of them young men under 21 – are experiencing in Greece. The fight against this grave injustice was discussed at a joint event organized by de:criminalize and Sudanuprising, moderated by Hanaa Hakiki. Her conclusion: "Whilst European states continue to enjoy full impunity for grave human rights violations at their borders, minors are criminalized for the lack of safe and legal pathways. It is beyond shameful."  

More about the event

How can we ensure that accountability is not evaded by those who, because of their power, bear a great deal of responsibility for global injustice? This question has preoccupied human rights activist and author Steve Crawshaw for decades—as it has Wolfgang Kaleck, who found one answer in 1998 with the founding of the ECCHR. In the face of authoritarianism and wars, the tension between law and power is currently being reassessed. The challenges this poses and where progressive human rights activists can develop new strategies was the topic of a conversation between Crawshaw and Kaleck, organised by Bard College Berlin.

More about the event

“We have to learn how to deal with the present, to better prepare for the future.” This was the challenge addressed by Wolfgang Kaleck at the opening symposium for the upcoming 2026 Photo-Triennal in Hamburg. The two-day-event, co-organized by ECCHR, presented many inspiring ideas for future collaborations between art and human rights activists. Interdisciplinary collaborations are all the more important, as Wolfgang Kaleck emphasized in his conversation with the Triennal’s artistic director, Marc Sealy, it is not enough to “stay in our bubbles and complain about the world as it is.”

More about the symposium and the 2026 Photo-Triennal

“Supply Chain Capitalism” was a term used on a panel with Lisa Pitz during the conference on Counter-Power and Counterstrategies in Transnational Value Chains organized by the Böckler Foundation. Trade unionists, academics, civil society representatives and lawyers from all over the world discussed the importance of realizing that all of us are merely located at different points of the same exploitative system and that collective mobilization along the entire value chain is key.

What this can mean for local struggles was the topic of another event attended by Lisa Pitz and two guests from the Brazilian Cerrado, an important region for the export of soy and other agricultural products. Organized by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid), the event focused on the effectiveness of supply chain laws for people whose lives are affected by corporate activities.

Cannelle Lavite / Claire Tixeire

Multinational Lafarge Facing Unprecedented Charges for International Crimes: Insights Into the French Court Decisions

Opiniojuris, 15 November 2025

Alexander Schwarz

Interview: Völkerrechtler: „Warum ist Deutschland noch zweitgrößter Waffenlieferant für Netanjahu?“ (only available in German)

Der Freitag, 2 December 2025

Anna Kiefer / Claire Tixeire

Interview: Behind the story: French cement firm Lafarge in the dock, accused of funding terrorism

France24, 4 November 2025

Anna Kiefer / Claire Tixeire

Interview: France resumes Lafarge trial What is the background to the accusation and its relationship to Syria? (only available in Arabic)

Syria TV, 22 November 2025