Large multinational companies are getting together with NGOs in London on 26th-27th October to look at how these companies can improve on their human rights records, or is that just how they can improve on (not) reporting on them...
Everyone's favourite oil and mining multinational companies - including BP, Shell, Rio Tinto and De Beers - are all getting together for a £400 a head talk shop this Tuesday & Wednesday (26th-27th October). So why's that news - these corporate love-ins are a regular event for your jet-setting corporate-types? Well this time they're getting together with some big UK charities (like Oxfam, Amnesty and International Alert) to find common ground (or is that to enclose it) on the subjext of "Business Action on Human Rights". I kid you not.
Organised for the magazine 'Ethical Corporation', the whole conference is geared towards how these companies who deal in extracting profit from resources from under the land of displaced or affected communities can deal with the resulting 'issues' (for example the armed insurrection of the people of Bougainville against the Rio Tinto owned Panguna copper mine).
Sessions include "Extractive industries: Managing plant security issues"(such as how you keep your mercenaries in ammunition) and "What are the limits of business responsibility for human rights?" (bugger all if you can get away with it). The phrase 'green-wash' was coined for large companies buying off and stealing the language of environmental groups, now we appear to have 'red-wash' to get rid of that unwanted blood on your hands.
The mystery seems to be why so many of the big NGOs are happy to engage with corporations on their terms at an event like this. It is perhaps no surprise that members of affected communities have not been asked to put their side of what human rights mean. (but then on any compensation they may receive I don't suppose they could afford to a cup of tea at the conference venue, the Regents Part Marriott Hotel, let alone the £400 entrance fee).
More information on the conference, for those that may want to pop by to give them a different perspective is at www.ethicalcorp.com/humanrights/programme.shtml. More information on the companies involved is at www.minesandcommunities.org or www.nonewoil.org.
Organised for the magazine 'Ethical Corporation', the whole conference is geared towards how these companies who deal in extracting profit from resources from under the land of displaced or affected communities can deal with the resulting 'issues' (for example the armed insurrection of the people of Bougainville against the Rio Tinto owned Panguna copper mine).
Sessions include "Extractive industries: Managing plant security issues"(such as how you keep your mercenaries in ammunition) and "What are the limits of business responsibility for human rights?" (bugger all if you can get away with it). The phrase 'green-wash' was coined for large companies buying off and stealing the language of environmental groups, now we appear to have 'red-wash' to get rid of that unwanted blood on your hands.
The mystery seems to be why so many of the big NGOs are happy to engage with corporations on their terms at an event like this. It is perhaps no surprise that members of affected communities have not been asked to put their side of what human rights mean. (but then on any compensation they may receive I don't suppose they could afford to a cup of tea at the conference venue, the Regents Part Marriott Hotel, let alone the £400 entrance fee).
More information on the conference, for those that may want to pop by to give them a different perspective is at www.ethicalcorp.com/humanrights/programme.shtml. More information on the companies involved is at www.minesandcommunities.org or www.nonewoil.org.
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Concern regarding Business & Human Rights Seminar, 9 December 2004
22.10.2004 15:41
The Amnesty email address is
The Oxfam address is information@ oxfaminternational.org
Why not write to both of them. Here's what I wrote:
Dear Samantha Hoskins,
I have just read about the forthcoming seminar on "Business & Human Rights" at
However, I originally came across it here at
Should Amnesty International really be giving credibility to multinational corporations seeking to improve their public relations whilst they continue to directly and indirectly abuse human rights, impoverish local people and destroy the environment throughout the world?
If we look at the facts, it's plain to see that globally, business is part of the problem rather than the solution.
I would agree that it's important to engage with these people and talk to them, but not to the extent that they walk all over you and use your organisation to justify / cover up their continuing repression.
I do support "Corporate Social Responsiblity" but only when it is based on reality - all too often it is more about rhetoric, spin and greenwash redwash (in short, deceptive corporate propaganda) while the human rights abuses, environmental destruction and impoverishment continue. Look at Shell and BP for example!
Progressive organisations need to be holding business to account, not sucking up to it, if they are serious about building a world in which People (and the environment) come before Profit.
In particular, I would like to draw your attention to the following sessions listed in the time table.
"Extractive industries: Managing plant security issues"
The indymedia article suggests that this is a euphemism for "how you keep your mercenaries in ammunition (etc)". Certainly to me, the title sounds like it has a lot less to do with promoting human rights than 'managing' pro-human rights dissent. Images come to mind of brutal security guards protecting oil refineries, copper mines and dams from people who's lives have been destroyed by these things - the kind of things which A.I. must be highly familiar with.
Here's another one:
"What are the limits of business responsibility for human rights?" (bugger all if you can get away with it, as the Indymedia article suggests). This is a serious point - what can this title possibly mean (in the real world) apart from "what are the limits of what we can get away with" or at least "which human rights abuses perhaps indirectly caused by our company can we realistically wash our hands of without problems from the government or problems from human rights campaigners, etc?".
Should organisations working to promote global justice really allow themselves to be co-opted this easily by big business? It is not Amnesty International's job to help business GET AWAY WITH human rights abuses or to help it pretend that it's ceasing to abuse human rights when in fact it is continuing. This whole relationship with organisations which exist solely to make a profit for its faceless, anonymous shareholders (often mediated by faceless, anonymous fund managers) appears to be getting a little too cosy. I don't think it's right.
I shall be writing to other NGOs, to make my concerns felt.
Many thanks for reading this and taking the time to consider these problems.
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activist