Harrington Investments, a socially responsible investment advisory firm in the United States, says it has been successful in defeating a Yahoo! Inc. corporate challenge to keep a shareholder resolution on human rights off the ballot for the annual meeting scheduled for June 12, 2007.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States ruled on April 16, 2007 that Yahoo! Inc. could not exclude the proposal from the company's proxy material and shareholder ballot.
"This is the first time a binding by-law amendment to create a corporate Board Committee on Human Rights has made it on a shareholder ballot," said John Harrington, president and chief executive of HII. "The internationally recognized moral issue of human rights will now become an important fiduciary issue for corporate directors. Shareholders have no power to nominate directors. They are self-nominated. These directors, however, are fiduciaries, and as such, should be responsible for overseeing global management, whose decisions may and often do, lead to violations of human rights throughout the world."
The shareholder resolution is a by-law amendment that authorizes the board of directors to establish a Board Committee on Human Rights which could review and make policy recommendations regarding human rights issues raised by the company's activities and policies. The resolution suggests that in defining "human rights," the committee could use the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as nonbinding benchmarks or reference documents.
