From: Viray,
James A (DRL)
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 6:39
PM
To:Bama Athreya
Cc: Tim
Newman; Brian
Campbell
Subject: RE: ILRF Letter Regarding June
17th Cocoa
Forum
Bama,
Thanks for the
clarification. I can only guess as to why certain companies would choose not to
participate if it isn’t for legal reasons. Regardless of their reasons, the
reality is that we need the companies there if we’re talking about addressing
issues within their supply chains.
I hope you
understand the difficult position we’re in.
Best,
James
______________________
James
Viray
Director
Office of
International Labor and
Corporate
Social Responsibility
U.S. Department of
State
From:
Bama Athreya
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 6:34
AM
To: Viray, James A
(DRL)
Cc: Tim Newman; Brian
Campbell
Subject: Re: ILRF Letter Regarding June
17th Cocoa
Forum
Dear
James,
Please allow us to clarify that
we are not involved in any pending litigation against any company in the
chocolate industry, and have not been since January 2007. The companies are
aware of this.
As you know we have extensive on the
ground experience working directly with organizations in Ivory
Coast on this issue and I would like to repeat
our request to be included in the Forum. If the companies choose not to
participate in your event, it will not be for legal reasons.
We do look forward to participating
in this event. Thanks once again for your kind
attention.
Best
regards,
Bama
----- Original Message -----
From: Viray, James A (DRL)
To: Bama Athreya
Cc: Tim Newman; Brian Campbell
Sent: Tuesday,
June 03, 2008 10:18 PMSubject: RE: ILRF
Letter Regarding June 17th Cocoa
ForumHello,
Bama.I received your letter regarding
our June 17 multi-stakeholder forum on eliminating the worst forms of child
labor in the cocoa industry. We very much appreciate ILRF’s efforts in raising
awareness of the need to address this issue.As you know, we try our best to
include as many stakeholders as possible in our work on business and human
rights. We are excited to be co-hosting the June forum with the Belgian
government and look forward to working with the additional NGO and company
stakeholders they have invited.In organizing the upcoming forum,
we have faced the same dilemma we faced with the previous forum: Several
companies have stated that they would not be able to participate if ILRF was in
attendance because of ILRF’s involvement in an on-going lawsuit against certain
chocolate and cocoa manufacturers. For this particular event, we and our
Belgian co-hosts feel that we need those companies present to have any
productive discussion of how to more effectively address issues within their
supply chains.We apologize for not being able
to extend an invitation for the June forum to ILRF. However, that does not mean
that we do not value your input. We hope you will be willing to share your
perspectives with us as we prepare for the forum and as we follow-up on the
forum’s outcomes.Best,
James
______________________
James Viray
Director
Office of International Labor
and
Corporate
Social Responsibility
U.S. Department of State
