The government’s widespread human rights abuses, and its defiant refusal to engage on these issues, pose formidable challenges for foreign governments, Olympic athletes, and commercial sponsors of the games, like Coca-Cola. In December, President Joe Biden sent an important message when he announced that no senior U.S. government officials will attend the games in response to China’s egregious human rights abuses. The IOC’s unwillingness to meaningfully engage on human rights issues was underscored recently when it declined to hold private talks with a coalition of organizations supportive of the Uyghurs. In 2012, in response to ongoing human rights violation in Myanmar, the U.S. government enacted a public reporting requirement for companies doing business in that country. In July, Paul Lalli, who directs Coke’s human rights program, testified before Congress about the Beijing games and how the company upholds its global commitment to human rights and uses independent third parties to assess labor practices at its bottling sites.

Source: The Star January 12, 2022 21:50 UTC