Humanitarians, corporate interests strike a deal

Last December, American and British oil companies, human rights groups, and the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor did something extraordinary—they agreed. The product of their collaboration, a list of guidelines on human rights and security in developing nations, is a breakthrough, albeit a small one—both for the reputations of huge corporations and for rights campaigns that usually operate outside corporate policy.

The "Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights" deal with corporate security in response to political actions organized by workers and residents of oil-producing areas. These principles are not laws, but simply intentions that stand as a symbolic move toward resolving conflicts between labor and industry in underdeveloped societies. Though it is promising that several multinationals—BP Amoco, Chevron, Freeport McMoran, Conoco, Shell and Texaco—are beginning to acknowledge their role in human rights issues, this loose collection of "principles" demands public scrutiny and skepticism.

Though the ostensible goal is peace on the work site, rights advocates should be wary that the multinationals involved have not in fact promised to be more politically responsive to protesters and activists in underdeveloped communities. Instead, the focus is on reducing the extreme violence in which such dissonance could result. This demonstrates an underlying principle of corporate-centered human rights policy: reducing unrest in the workplace means less chaos and less danger of human rights violations in reaction to labor uprisings.

Corporations have a right to protect their property. But often, the demands of protesters—for increases in revenue investment in impoverished surrounding communities, or compensation for environmental destruction—have been rational, unlike the responses of corporate management. In 1999, Human Rights Watch reported that, in Nigeria, community members who rallied against the environmentally and socially detrimental presence of Shell's oil facility were frequently intimidated, beaten, and even executed by security forces with indirect corporate authorization. By understating the significance and context of community-company conflicts, the guidelines have the potential to reduce human rights issues at the core of the problem to mere "safety hazards." With the Voluntary Principles, multinationals now have a framework for, and perhaps even a means of legitimizing, the use of police and military forces to control uprisings in the communities they occupy.

Though the accord suggests that multinational corporations consult with "host government representatives" for an unbiased assessment of the "potential for violence," political elites in economically dependent nations don't make particularly impartial consultants. Corporations already work closely with host governments in a capacity that breeds, rather than prevents, human rights violations. In the case of Nigeria, the authoritarian government provided Shell with paramilitary police task forces, who became notorious for brutality and unjust detainment of protesters, community leaders, and even Nigerian citizens not involved with anti-corporation campaigns. The Nigerian government perceived threats to oil production as threats to desperately needed economic development. Moreover, deals with oil companies would provide financial rewards for security officials. A dialogue between complicit corporate and political interests could hardly be relied upon as a democratic forum on the use of force.

Despite the ambiguity of the security resolutions, the guidelines do acknowledge the rules of the United Nations and the International Labor Organization. Corporations are advised to support "human rights training and education for public security as well as [government and community] efforts to strengthen state institutions to ensure accountability and respect human rights." It is unclear whether the support will be financial or merely moral, or even whether it will happen at all, since there is no acutal legal mandate for it. Human rights groups should be aware that the increased role of multinationals in strengthening governments of poorer nations could adversely affect national sovereignty and diminish the influence of non-governmental organizations and the UN.

At best, the Voluntary Principles are a small step toward developing social responsibility in multinational policy. But the fact remains that "principles," although they form the basis of positive social change, don't work very well on their own. Considering the dim prospects of multinationals suddenly adopting a policy of moral volunteerism, human rights advocates should remind corporations that calculating political maneuvers, no matter how promising, will ultimately be judged by their results. Michelle Chen is a sophomore in Calhoun.

Back to Opinion...