Arvind Ganesan
In their search for finite resources, oil companies must partner governments who may have dismal human rights records – witness Total’s involvement with the Burmese junta in constructing the Yadana natural-gas pipeline.
In Colombia the drive to develop oil fields has landed companies in the middle of a war zone. To ensure oil is extracted, the companies have made contractual security arrangements with state forces that Human Rights Watch called “the worst violators of human rights in the hemisphere”.
Abusive governments need the oil companies badly. Few have robust economies – free markets need free people – and these regimes are generally starved of cash. Oil revenue helps them stay in power.
Partnering big oilEcompanies also gives them international prestige – another resource that’s scarce for human rights abusers. Oil-consuming countries such as the United States, France or the United Kingdom want to maintain energy supplies, increase their global influence, support their corporate citizens and ensure that their exchequers flourish.
Abdala Bucaram, former president of Ecuador, commented on a possible strike in 1996 by the oil workers’ union: “If the oil workers seek to halt the production of a basic and strategic service such as oil, I will personally witness the police and the armed forces giving them a thrashing to make them return to work.”
Today such examples abound: when the Nigerian government resorts to repression to deal with communities protesting against the impact of oil development; when counter-insurgency operations are intertwined with natural-gas development in the Tenasserim region of Burma; or when the international community fails to address the human rights crisis in Algeria for fear of jeopardising oil and gas contracts.
The public is aware of the crucial role of transnational corporations in an era when influence of nation states is diminishing.
In response, NGOs have launched campaigns to hold corporations accountable for human rights violations, along with government counterparts. The best-known example is the coalition of environmental and human rights organisations that has campaigned against the activities of Shell in Nigeria and BP in Colombia.
Reeling from accusations of complicity in human rights violations in Nigeria and Colombia, Shell and BP have taken a first step and acknowledged the concept of human rights. They stand in stark contrast to US and French counterparts such as Exxon and Total, which ignore the issue.
But it’s not enough for the companies to issue broad statements. Human rights information should be included in their risk analyses, and internal procedures should be implemented to ensure human rights policies are known and enforced at every level of management.
Human Rights Watch is monitoring the Caspian Sea, where oil and natural gas reserves are being developed. Familiar problems are arising: abusive security forces, inadequate judiciaries and systems of dispute resolution, and discrimination against political and ethnic minorities.
Many projects are not in place yet, so corporations can still act to prevent their own complicity in human rights abuses. They should start by incorporating human rights information into their country-risk analyses.
Arvind Ganesan works on corporate issues for Human Rights Watch