On March 2, 2021, a group of experts on the UN Human Rights Council issued a statement calling for a halt to further petrochemical complex development along the lower Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It also called for “the United States and St. James Parish to recognise and pay reparations for the centuries of harm to Afro-descendants rooted in slavery and colonialism.” The UN experts specifically pointed to the proposed Formosa Plastics Group’s Formosa LA LLC petrochemical complex (perversely referred to as the “Sunshine Project” by authorities in St. James Parish in Louisiana, where the facility will be located) as the latest example of a
form of environmental racism [that] poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, [and the] right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights.
UN Human Rights Office of the High Commisioner
