Yahoo! Asks That Chinese Rights Suit Be Dismissed

Eviliza writes that Yahoo! is asking that the suit filed against it over the infringement of a Chinese journalist's civil rights be dismissed in US courts this week. The company has stated that it had no choice but to give up the journalist's information, as it's Chinese subsidiary is subject to Chinese laws. "'Defendants cannot be expected, let alone ordered to violate another nation's laws,' the company said in its filing. But Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights said the company had failed to meet its ethical responsibilities. 'Even if it was lawful in China, that does not take away from Yahoo's obligation to follow not just Chinese law, but US law and international legal standards as well, when they do business abroad,' he said."

Yahoo! is correct

If you set the legal precendent that you can sue in one country about something you were forced to do according to the laws of another country, chaos would ensue.

I'm not thrilled that Yahoo! did what they did. Primarily because I don't like putting exclama

Re:Yahoo! is correct

In my country it is forbidden to use exclamation marks in the middle of a sentence. You will be arrested and prosecuted. Anything you type can and will be used against you. Resistance is futile.

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China signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is enough to justify suing an international company for violating human rights in my opinion.

There has to be some limit to what an international company can do in violation of human rights. Wou

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Do international agreements mean nothing?

If a nation has sufficient power, he can pretty much all international law. *cough US and China cough*

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If a nation has sufficient power, he can pretty much all international law.

Write?
Ignore?
Enforce?
Obey?
Invalidate?
Disagree With?
Agree With?

(All of the above I would say, selectively.)

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Yet what kind of global economy are we creating when by doing business with countries like this, we are allowing possibly overpaid jobs in a possibly overpriced free country (relatively speaking), go to a cheap location with an unsuitable government?

Isn't

Re:Yahoo! is correct

I think you'd better reconsider your analogy. It is the West that is addicted to the crack here, and is willing to sell out on every principal that it once fought so hard to preserve for cheap toothpaste, cheap toys and cheap dog food.

Re:Yahoo! is correct

It is the West that is addicted to the crack here, and is willing to sell out on every principal that it once fought so hard to preserve for cheap toothpaste, cheap toys and cheap dog food.

Exactly. I see this variety of doublethink at farmers' markets up here. Many people in this moneyed college town, who will fulminate endlessly about the need for agriculture companies to stop polluting and start paying their workers a living wage, are somehow offended that a local organic farmer is charging $4/lb for tomatoes. "But I can get tomatoes at the store for less than half that!"

Lots of folks preach a good sermon, but aren't willing to make the sacrifices to put their words into action.

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The real irony is now this out-of-control economic "success" in China is spawning a corrupt attitude that you can package any shit you like in a box, stamp "Barbie" on it and send it off to eager kiddies in far off lands. The West is getting its just dess

Re:Yahoo! is correct

The United States is about profits, about getting influence through lobbyists and financial manipulation, about local officials skimming off the top just like these [wikipedia.org] thieves, [wikipedia.org] and about a pack of fearful, demented businessmen who want to divert the American populace from their incompetence and hypocrisy by giving them iPhones, MySpace, and a War on Pretty Much Everything.

The names and ideologies change, but it's the same game pretty much everywhere.

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The solution to the Chinese problem is not to ignore our own faults and problems. So your point is moot.

There is absolutely nothing preventing us from solving both problems, because they are totally independent of one another.

Likely the solutions are the s

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Look, the whole argument put forward to bring China into the "fold" was that the only way we could hope to influence their system was through trade, that trade would give the Chinese a taste of what freedom can provide. It was a bogus argument. What trad

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What we do know is that the technocrats and military officers at the top of the Chinese political system have no problem torturing dissidents and turning the tanks on their own people.

You know what's really scary? The amount of Chinese living in China and

Re:Yahoo! is correct

I believe they are correct according to the law.

Really? Last I checked, it was still illegal for Americans to violate human rights, even while overseas. Also, hasn't the "compelled to by the government" defense been pretty thoroughly rejected [wikipedia.org] already?

Of course, this may have changed during the last seven years, just like the government's understanding of habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment, so perhaps you're right.

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Ah, you see, but that's where the handy notions of the subsidiary and of brand licensing come into play. It's not really Yahoo, Microsoft and Google giving up people to be imprisoned and tortured, and its not really Cisco building the Great Firewall of Ch

Feel Bad For Yahoo! No Win Situation?

I actually feel bad for Yahoo in a way. They're in a bit of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Had they refused the Chinese government's request, their Chinese operations could have been shut down by the government. They might have even seen their employees arrested or harrassed by the government for failing to play ball.

So they play ball, and they get sued in the U.S.

Makes me think a bit of the situation in Cuba. Lots of U.S. firms would like to do business there, have it opened up to trade, see relations normalized. I mean we've normalized relations with Vietnam even though POW/MIA groups feel the country still hasn't been as forthcoming as it could be on the subject of missing servicemen from the war. But POW/MIA groups can't swing Florida in a presidential election, so every president has given in to a small special interest group, and kept a hard line on Cuba.

So, while American companies are denied access to Cuba as a market, a source for materials, and a source for goods, those benefits go to companies in countries where a small block of Cuban immigrants don't hold the disproportionate political sway they do here.

The same can be said about China. If we let human rights activists use lawsuits to penalize companies for following Chinese rules while doing business in China, it just opens the door for companies from countries where human rights aren't as important and suing isn't as easy.

Re:Feel Bad For Yahoo! No Win Situation?

Makes me think a bit of the situation in Cuba. Lots of U.S. firms would like to do business there, have it opened up to trade, see relations normalized. I mean we've normalized relations with Vietnam even though POW/MIA groups feel the country still hasn't been as forthcoming as it could be on the subject of missing servicemen from the war. But POW/MIA groups can't swing Florida in a presidential election, so every president has given in to a small special interest group, and kept a hard line on Cuba.

So, while American companies are denied access to Cuba as a market, a source for materials, and a source for goods, those benefits go to companies in countries where a small block of Cuban immigrants don't hold the disproportionate political sway they do here.

When I was in Cuba a few years ago, there were plenty of American corporate offices, all in one heavily guarded (by Cuban military/police) compound in one of the best locations in Havana, right in the center of the city. There were probably other locations, too, and certainly enough business operations to support their offices.

The Cuban "embargo" is nearly entirely a fraud, except the part that keeps individual Cubans cut off from the rest of the world, and (most) individual Americans cut off from Cuba. It's proven to do nothing to force political change there, and to promote political corruption here in the US (and in Cuba, and elsewhere in cooperation). It's one of the greatest political crimes in American history. And it's going on right now, and will continue tomorrow. Along with the propaganda that it is really an embargo.

Re:Feel Bad For Yahoo! No Win Situation?

I actually feel bad for Yahoo in a way.

So do I, until I remember that they're in China through choice.

All of these western companies set up shop in China and then say "well, we have to abide by local laws" when somebody complains about them colluding with the Chinese authorities. There's an easy solution: don't set up shop in China. You won't win anyway.

If all of the western corporations steered well clear of China (and other questionable regimes), and indeed Chinese companies, it would send a far stronger message than anything any human rights organisation would do, and shed an extremely favourable light upon the western corporations. Call it a voluntary trade sanction if you will.

As it stands, human rights laws are flouted the world over because corporations and governments get away with it. If everybody stopped doing business with the companies and regimes responsible, the world would be a slightly nicer place.

Nothing says "fuck you and your oppressive dictatorial policies" than the rest of the world refusing to take part in your GDP growth exercise: China's capital reserves wouldn't last forever, after all.

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That is why a company needs to thoroughly evaluate the legal and moral climate of a country before it moves to do business there. If they decide to go to a country that has a completely different values system then there could be problems that have to be a

Rock and a Hard Place

As much as I beleive in human rights for everyone it simply isn't possible for a company to comply with 2 sets of conflicting laws in 2 different juristictions. Perhaps Morton Sklar can explain how Yahoo could follow Chinese law and US law at the same tim

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Maybe they can't. Shit, I guess that means that companies benefitting from an American base of operations shouldn't do business with repressive regimes through their subsidiaries.

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No kidding! Yahoo is quite clever to frame this as a "we have no choice" situation... look how many here are falling for it.

Just because somebody offers to pay you for something doesn't mean you have to do it.

To say that US law cannot control what Yah

I think not.

they did not know what he was being investigated for?

I think not.

Beijing State Security Bureau
Notice of Evidence Collection
[2004] BJ State Sec. Ev. Coll. No. 02
Beijing Representative Office, Yahoo! (HK) Holdings Ltd.:
According to investigation, your office is in possession of the following items relating to a case of suspecting illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities that is currently under investigation by our bureau. In accordance with Article 45 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC, [these items] may be collected.

The items for collection are:
Email account registration information for [e-mail], all login times, corresponding IP addresses, and relevant email content from February 22, 2004 to present.
Beijing State Security Bureau (seal)
April 22, 2004

see:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070730-chin ese-dissident-e-mails-what-did-yahoo-know-and-when -did-it-know-it.html [arstechnica.com]
http://www.duihua.org/press/news/070725_ShiTao.pdf [duihua.org]

And even if it is local law, that does not make it the right thing to do. Even then they should of been more upfront to congress when asked about it. Shi Tao will be in jail until 2014 and thats no laughing matter.

International Legal Standards?

What are international legal standards? And are they standard between the US and China?

Either we allow a US business to operate in China -- and follow their laws -- or we don't. If it's too damaging to human rights to allow a search business to operate in

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What are international legal standards? And are they standard between the US and China?

Yeah, while I'm very much against censorship, I'm not sure exactly how these activists expect a US court to apply nebulous 'international legal standards' to this situa

Can someone please tell me

Why most Americans think that US law trumps other countries laws even inside those countries?

How would Americans feel if some Chinese company doing buisness in the US claimed chinese law should be upheld in the US?

Re:Can someone please tell me - Sure we can

In Islamic countries like say...Libya, it's not uncommon to punish (and execute) people who have broken their own laws abroad. In China, this is also true. Australia will punish (ban) people from entering based on activities outside of their country. There

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In Islamic countries like say...Libya, it's not uncommon to punish (and execute) people who have broken their own laws abroad. In China, this is also true. Australia will punish (ban) people from entering based on activities outside of their country.

Canadians will be tried in a court of law if they engage in sexual exploitation of children abroad.

Different situations

Those examples are cases where one goes to another country and does something that is not expressly prohibited by local laws. In Yahoo's case, they simply were avoiding breaking the foreign law. Different situations. Even so, I would say it is still wro

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It doesn't trump the law there. Both laws can apply, which means that a company doing business in both countries might find itself unable to comply with applicable laws.

If they don't like being in that position, they don't have to do business in both cou

Re:Can someone please tell me

How would Americans feel if some Chinese company doing buisness in the US claimed chinese law should be upheld in the US?

I don't see the relevance. Perhaps you meant, "How would Chinese feel if some Chinese company doing business in the U.S. claimed that Chinese law should not be upheld in the U.S.?"

Since the PRC government is more than willing to prosecute Chinese nationals for violations of Chinese law in parts of the world where the PRC does not have jurisdiction, this is still a bad comparison to make, especially since the U.S. will do the same thing in certain instances. [wikipedia.org]

The question is: if the U.S. government is willing to prosecute some violations of U.S. law overseas, why not others?

And the answer is simple: Yahoo (and fuck you, marketdroids, I'm not using your infantile punctuation) has a better lobbyist presence than child molesters.

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We aren't talking about some arbitrary procedural law here. We are talking about suppression of ideas and torture of dissidents. These are international concepts, ones which many countries hold up as bad behavior. If Yahoo knew that the information it w

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It's a suit filed by a chinese journalist. America as a whole has nothing to do with this suit and, as far as I can tell, it doesn't even involve a US attorney. Can you please tell me why you're generalizing this to all Americans?

Yup

"We were just following orders..."

The universal defense of the repugnant.

Because they were forced?

I'm sure Peter Drucker rolled in his grave when Yahoo handed over that information. It's nothing short of criminal activity - people got hurt because Yahoo made a business/money decision. Obviously, they did things right by following Chinese law which th

Re:Because they were forced?

Not as simple as that. Yahoo's employees in China could have been arrested if they didn't comply. Thus, it was a case of who Yahoo allows to get screwed -- their employees, or some people to which they have no connection. They made the best choice, to protect their employees.

The *right* choice would have been to not get into that situation in the first place. When it comes to doing business in China, the only ethical move is not to play. But very few businesses are that ethical...or have any ethics at all, where the potential for profit exists.

Is Yahoo! correct?

On the surface, it would seem that you are bound by the laws of whatever country you are presently in. But I think there are mitigating circumstances here. We're talking about human rights violations.

But let's just push the logical envelope and say, for

Re:Is; Yahoo!, correct.?

I believe it needs to be spelled out in no uncertain terms either by law or legal precedent that US companies or companies that wish to operate in the US should not be allowed to operate in the US if they are found guilty of being complicit or cooperative in the execution of laws or other legal activities in other nations that are in violation of generally accepted standards of human rights.

The government would have to act that way first before it can tell its corporate citizens to do the same.
And if all else fails, the corps will simply move to another, more profitable country [bbc.co.uk].

International Business

That's one way to stifle other countries from setting up shop in your country. Make it almost impossible for them to do business.

Then once they give up and go home, tax their imports as additional punishment for even trying.

Yahoo Doesn't Have A Choice

American law does not apply in foreign jurisdictions. The Yahoo! disclosure in China was more than legal under Chinese law, it was illegal for Yahoo! to have ignored the request. Cast in another light, Slashdotters mostly thought that American copyright law should not have applied to allofmp3.com, which was based in Russia. It is sad that Chinese law is so horrible, but part of doing business in China is to follow the law there.

Imagine if the American subsidiary of a Swiss bank ignored a subpoena from the FBI for information about one of its clients, who was thought to have links with Al Qaeda. I would imagine the bank would get shut down by law enforcement. This is the same thing; America should not be able to force other countries to submit to its laws simply because it is a big country with lots of money.

Re:Yahoo Doesn't Have A Choice

It is sad that Chinese law is so horrible, but part of doing business in China is to follow the law there[...]Imagine if the American subsidiary of a Swiss bank ignored a subpoena from the FBI for information about one of its clients, who was thought to have links with Al Qaeda. I would imagine the bank would get shut down by law enforcement.

Gee, that would make so much more sense if there was some unalienable right of corporations to do business with repressive regimes. Of course, there isn't, so I don't see your point. If an American company has to have their Chinese operation shut down to avoid violating human rights, then tough titty to them. Doing business with dictators [wikipedia.org] has always been risky for American companies.

IANAL...

but I don't think this will be dismissed, at least not for the reason given. It doesn't matter if it was legal or legally required in the PRC. Check the wikipedia page for Alien Tort Claims Act (enacted in 1789 mainly to deal with piracy) or google search unocal and slavery. Unocal got nailed for using slave labor in Burma. The Burmese government provided the slaves. The court doesn't care if abiding by US law means breaking a foreign government's law or not doing business in that country. A great legal scholar once said, "tough shit" (so he was my roommate and rather mediocre).

I think this is a very good thing. The ATCA simply requires corporations with US operations to follow very basic standards of human decency. If you want to assist a foreign government with genocide or running prison labor camps for dissidents don't expect to do it from U.S. soil. Corporations hate this of course, there's good money in human rights violations. Ethical and moral arguments clearly did not work for Yahoo and Google so maybe a lawsuit will remind them that there are consequences for being an accomplice.

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"If you want to assist a foreign government with genocide or running prison labor camps for dissidents don't expect to do it from U.S. soil."

Unless you were IBM [wikipedia.org], but that was a while ago. They're on our side now.

Re:There is always a choice

It is a good thing they weren't around to do business in Pol Pot's Cambodia. "We had no choice, we couldn't do business there unless we helped them kill all the intellectuals."

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It is a good thing they weren't around to do business in Pol Pot's Cambodia. "We had no choice, we couldn't do business there unless we helped them kill all the intellectuals."

I see you're wearing a new hat today, Herr Godwin.

Godwin?

Here is the real one:

It is a good thing General Electric weren't doing business in Nazi Germany: "We had no choice: people needed their lampshades."

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They had a choice between making money in China or ruining this guy's life because he believed in freedom.

I think that you mean:

They had an opportunity to make money in China at the expense of ruining this guy's life because he believed in freedom.

I think

blindingly obvious

Even if Yahoo is being required to cough up a few dissidents, in the long run is Yahoo causing more good (i.e. positive social change) than harm, or are they just in China to make money?

$$$.

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that stupid bang on the end of Yahoo's name in articles. It looks stupid and it's an abuse of punctuation.

That it is, but it's their official stupid abuse of punctuation.
At least the Register still ridicules them for the abuse of punctuation they force them to commit.

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Ok, but only if you'll tell me why I'm in trouble for beating up my girlfriend, while genocide is being practiced in Darfur.

Please, world....only try to solve one problem at a time. Kthxbai.