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Human Right Watch World Report 2000 Human Right Watch World Report 1999 Press Releases / Backgrounders
The IMF and Angola: Oil and Human RightsPress Release, June 22, 2000 The International Monetary Fund's Staff Monitoring Program for Angola: The Human Rights Implications Backgrounder, June 2000 Oil Companies Complicit in Nigerian Abuses February 23, 1999 Enron Defense Of Human Rights Abuse Rejected January 28, 1999 U.S. Corporation Complicit in Abuses in India January 25, 1999 State Of Emergency Declared In The Niger Delta December 31, 1998
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Business and Human Rights -- The Bottom Line Commentary
by Arvind Ganesan
Fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even the most abusive governments at least pay lip service to its principles. They
respond to United Nations initiatives and to those from private organizations such as mine, Human Rights Watch. But that's only half the story. In an era of global business in which more and more corporations routinely do business outside their home country, many of
these companies still argue that they don't bear any responsibility for human rights in the places where they trade and invest. If protesters are
beaten up, or people being tortured, it always is the host government that is to blame - never the companies.
In the last ten years, more and more corporations have addressed
human-rights issues directly. The footwear and apparel industry was the
first to respond, in part because the marketing for their product depended
so heavily on a corporate image. A reputation for exploiting sweatshop
labor damaged such an image. But the movement now reaches well beyond shoes
and shirts. The 1995 execution of Ken Saro Wiwa, the Nigerian environmental
and democracy activist, galvanized protests around the role of Royal Dutch
Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta. Shell has since announced
a public human rights policy (and provided quite a nice website where you
can go and examine it). What the policy means in practice, though, has yet
to be seen.
American oil companies have argued that they are not responsible for human
rights or that they improve rights simply through conducting business. But
Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum don't think so and have done more
than their American counterparts in the energy business to respect human
rights.
But some lag far behind. Take the example of the Enron Corporation, a
Houston-based conglomerate which is making the largest single foreign
investment in India. It owns 50 percent of the Dabhol Power Corporation
(together with Bechtel, General Electric, and the Maharashtra State
Electricity Board), which is building the biggest private power plant in the
world.
Innocent people were beaten up and arrested on trumped up charges, sometimes
outside the very gates of Enron's power plant, because they were demonstrating
against what they believe are the plant's adverse effects on the local
environment and economy. The police committing these abuses are under the
command of local headquarters, but the company pays their salaries.
Enron cannot pretend it has no responsibility for what they do.
Sub-contractors have attacked and beaten local villagers who opposed the
plant. Did Enron tell them to do that? Probably not. But is Enron complicit in
those abuses? Absolutely.
We reported this in a recently released 166 page report. The company denied responsibility for these acts and said that even though they
pay the police, the company is "not responsible" for their actions. This would be news to local villagers, whose opposition to the project remains quashed by laws criminalizing even "chanting" and the "singing of songs."
There are specific and constructive steps that corporations can take to
limit such complicity in human rights abuses. For example in Colombia,
oil pipelines run through guerrilla-infested regions and the companies that own
them need security forces to defend their property. But the Colombian military
has a terrible human rights record and is known to cooperate with brutal
paramilitaries. Human Rights Watch has advised the companies on strict vetting
procedures that weed out these people from their payroll.
While recognizing that corporations are not rights agencies, we believe
that the corporate sector has a critical role to play in enhancing respect
for universally recognized human rights. A good human rights record is good for business. That is a bottom line we can all agree on.
--Arvind Ganesan tracks corporations and human rights issues for Human Rights Watch
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