In its early negotiations with the Indian government, DuPont had sought and won a remarkable clause in its investment agreement that absolved it from all liabilities in case of an accident.
In the case of Wal-Mart, the company may be "better" than its competitors at exploiting market trends, but that does not absolve it from responsibility for the consequences of the trends that it helps to promote.
And they say Belgrade's goal was achieved in February, when the international court, which is also in The Hague, declared Serbia not guilty of genocide, and absolved it from paying potentially enormous damages.
But the Vatican bank also demanded and received last August what investigators call a "counter letter" signed by Mr. Calvi and absolving it from all legal and financial responsibility for the loans to the Panamanian companies.
In the view of the Italian Treasury Minister, Nino Andreatta, and of Mr. Campi, the central bank's governor, the Vatican acted improperly in issuing letters of comfort to Banco Ambrosiano at the same time as it asked the bank to absolve it from any responsibility for the Panamian companies.
What has groups like the Environmental Protection Information Center most concerned is that as part of the Headwaters deal, Pacific Lumber would get what is known as an "incidental take permit". This would absolve it from liability for harming endangered species' habitats in the approved 8,500 acres if it has done so accidentally, or incidentally.
"When you read report after report about the attitudes of agencies to these children, you find they did actually see [the exploitation] as a lifestyle choice, the children were considered to be child prostitutes – that suggests victims were complicit in their abuse, it protects the abusers and it absolves agencies from failing to take action," she said.
Meanwhile, for many purposes there has been comfort in assuming neutrality because it is mathematically tidy, and because it absolves one from having to do difficult experiments.
Melanin makes you violent is a stupid, strange fiction; it absolves society from ever confronting the prejudice that is inextricable from policies; it perpetuates legal segregation without ever admitting that segregation is deliberate; it masks our complicity in allowing the growth of the carceral state by suggesting it must always be so.
