The Issue

By operating across different countries and regulatory regimes, major European and U.S. pesticide manufacturers avoid liability for the damage their products cause to human health and the environment.

For instance, the transnational company Bayer CropScience AG distributes hazardous pesticides from Germany to India through its subsidiary BayerCropScience Ltd and fails to ensure that consumers in India are adequately informed of the risks in using these pesticides. Moreover, they do not ensure suitable protective equipment is readily available and the documentation of potential negative health impacts has not led to changes in company marketing practices.

Similarly, Syngenta is the second largest pesticides company in India, where it sells Gramoxone - a pesticide that contains an active ingredient (paraquat) which has been banned in the European Union since 2007. Products containing paraquat in the United States must include the warning: “fatal if inhaled,” yet the Indian version by the same company only includes: “fatal if swallowed.” Moreover, these labels in India do not include instructions on correct disposal or warnings against using the containers for other purposes, which poses further health and environmental risks. Finally, some Syngenta labels in India are in Hindi and English only, languages that most farmers in Punjab, a state in Northern India do not speak.

To address the regulatory gaps in the global pesticide market, the United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) established a Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management (hereon the “Code”) in 1985 and later updated it in 2013. The Code outlines measures that governments and pesticide producers must take around personal protective equipment, container labeling and training for farmers handling pesticides. Failure to comply with these measures is considered a Code violation and any party can file a complaint before the FAO for review.

The Organizations

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is an independent, nonprofit, legal and educational organization that engages in innovative strategic litigation using European, international and national law to hold state and non-state actors accountable. Within its Business and Human Rights Program, ECCHR is involved in legal actions to halt harmful pesticide usage. For this project, ECCHR worked closely with its local India partner Kheti Virasat Mission, an organization that works directly with Punjabi farmers to promote sustainable farming practices.

The New Media Advocacy Project (NMAP) combines legal expertise with cutting edge communication tools to strengthen human rights and social justice work. It helps advocates tell their stories in compelling and powerful ways to tip the balance in the toughest cases and campaigns. In 2014, Bertha awarded NMAP a grant to support the lawyers in the Bertha Justice Network, of which the ECCHR is a member.

The Videos

The three videos drew upon the same footage from the cotton belt of Punjab, where interviews were conducted and shot by ECCHR with local farmers and their families, community leaders and pesticide distributors. The goal was to provide first-person accounts of the health, environmental and economic consequences of pesticide use for farmers, their families and communities. The videos also highlighted the implications for women, who are at a higher risk of health problems related to pesticide usage.  

Many of the interviews were shot at an ECCHR-led workshop and during a fact-finding trip in Punjab. The workshop covered various legal approaches to corporate accountability and explanations of what evidence activists need to collect to document a pesticide case. The participants were farmers, academics, community activists and leaders. International and local lawyers from South East Asian countries - namely India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines - also participated in the workshop and added a range of geographical perspectives to the video.

For the first two videos, ECCHR and NMAP did all pre-production and filming from March to May 2015 and editing from June to September 2015. For the third video they tapped into the existing footage and edited from May to June 2017. The entire project budget was $45,000, which includes the costs of ECCHR/NMAP staff and three Kheti Virasat Mission staff members assigned to this project. ECCHR also hired a documentary filmmaker and lawyer, who had previously worked on pesticides litigation for ECCHR, to assist with the filming and editing.

Given the challenges for civil society organizations to safely operate in India, there were some concerns around filming in particular regions due to security and required permits, but this did not affect the footage needed for the film. NMAP edited the Tackling the Accountability Gap training video over four months, the FAO submission video over two months and the short social media video over three weeks.

Video 1: Tackling the Accountability Gap: Legal Tools to Hold Pesticides Companies Accountable (15.40 min)

The first video showed how and why pesticides lack adequate regulation and protections due to a lack of accountability. By highlighting specific cases, the video outlined the steps in preparing litigation against pesticide companies as well as presented the challenges involved in identifying responsibility within complex distribution chains and in documenting slow-emerging health problems. The video also drew upon expert interviews and animations to delve into legal strategies and concepts as well as to explain how to monitor and document the impacts of pesticides in the field.

Video 2: Tackling the Accountability Gap and Inadequate Pesticide Management in Punjab: Farmers Testify (11.36 min)

The second video accompanied ECCHR’s formal monitoring report, which was submitted in October 2015. ECCHR compiled the report with support from Bread for the World (Germany), Public Eye (Switzerland), the Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (Malaysia) and Kheti Virasat Mission (India). This video highlights how the pesticide companies in question violated the Code, namely by showing how they do not provide users with proper training and personal protective equipment. It also shows how the canisters are sold with inadequate warning labels and the aggressive sales strategy used by the companies, which includes recommending high amounts of pesticide that do not seem necessary or warranted.

Video 3: Toxic Pesticides: The Threat to Punjabi Farmers (1.37 min social media trailer)

In anticipation of the screening at FAO, ECCHR and NMAP edited the third video to galvanize interest around the case via social media. At just over one and a half minutes, the video was created to be short and similar to quick news capsule videos used by AJ+ and other media outlets that focus on social media. The goal was to generate engagement amongst ECCHR and its partners’ social media followers, as well as to show to FAO that the case was gaining public attention and should be reviewed as soon as possible.