Miriam Saage-Maaß, Program Director for Business and Human Rights at ECCHR, has developed a study for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation which investigates the extent to which corporations are legally responsible for working conditions in overseas supplier firms and subsidiaries. The study focuses on compensation claims under civil law which can be pursued before German courts.

Between October 2010 and January 2011, ECCHR submitted OECD complaints relating to the trade of Uzbek cotton against seven cotton traders. Complaints were submitted to the respective national contact point in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain and France. ECCHR has now carried out comparative evaluations of three of the national contact points.

This report, which is an excerpt of ECCHR-publication “Folter und die Verwendung von Informationen in der Terrorismusbekämpfung”, analyzes the three cases selected for examination by the BND Committee of Inquiry (1. Committee of Inquiry, 16th legislative period). The cases in question are: Murat Kurnaz, detained in Guantánamo; Mohammed Zammar, tortured and detained to date in Syria; and Khaled El Masri, abducted and tortured in Afghanistan. To varying extents, German security forces were involved in each of these cases. The full report concludes that German authorities and courts have violated the absolute ban on torture.