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CounterPunch
September
4, 2002
Trouble in the
Pipeline
Corporate Promises Ring Hollow at the Earth Summit
by George Monbiot
Tomorrow, when the cleaners move into the Sandton
Center in Johannesburg, the United Nations will claim that something
has been rescued from the wreckage of the earth summit. Governments
may not have delivered, but big business has. The world's biggest
corporations, with the UN's blessing, have negotiated a series
of "partnership agreements" - voluntary commitments
obliging those companies to respect the environment and defend
human rights - which will be recorded as official outcomes of
the summit. These, they claim, will show that international law
is not required to force corporations to respect human rights
and the environment. Governments appear to agree, which may be
one reason why they have seemed so relaxed about the survival
of the planet: why legislate if the world can be saved by promises?
But just as the chief executives congratulate
each other, a new report suggests that the partnership agreements
are worthless. The company most clearly associated with "corporate
social responsibility", which has launched one of the new
partnerships and sponsored some of the key events at the summit,
appears to be saying one thing and doing just the opposite.
In a survey conducted by the Financial
Times, BP was named as the firm which commands the most public
respect for its environmental record. The energy company claims
to run its operations according to a set of strict "business
policies", which have enabled it to become "a power
for good in the world". BP, the policies state, will "respect
the rule of law", defend "basic human rights and fundamental
freedoms", "be held accountable for our actions"
and "will not choose business partners to do things on our
behalf that contravene these commitments". As an example
of good practice, the company cites, in its statement on environmental
and social reporting, the "major stakeholder consultation
exercises" carried out in preparation for the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline project.
Last week, an international coalition
of environmental and human rights groups published the results
of their fact-finding missions along the route of this pipeline.
Their report suggests that, far from being a model of good practice,
BP's showcase project breaks both the commitments BP has published
and the promises business leaders have made in Johannesburg.
Their findings imply that those who imagine we can rely on trust
to save the world are deceiving themselves.
The pipeline, the construction of which
is due to begin in December, runs from the Caspian Sea, through
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. It will
carry one million barrels of crude oil a day. One of the most
important energy projects on earth, it will reinforce Turkey's
position as a key strategic ally of the west. The 1,000 kilometers
of pipeline running through Turkey will be built by the Turkish
company Botas, on behalf of a consortium of oil firms led by
BP.
Botas, which is responsible for the "major
stakeholder consultation exercises" of which BP has boasted,
claims to have distributed information "to all stakeholders"
in the project, and to have consulted most of the villages along
the route of the pipeline and nearly everyone else who might
be affected by its construction. These assertions, the fact-finding
mission to Turkey suggests, are untrue.
The mission visited eight of the villages
Botas claims to have consulted. Four of them, it discovered,
had not been contacted at all. In the mission's report there
is a photograph of the village of Hacibayram, which Botas says
it "consulted by telephone". The houses are little
more than piles of rubble: the entire village was deserted years
ago. It has no telephones.
The consultations which did take place
appear to have been designed to manufacture consent. The people
Botas visited were asked what they felt the benefits of the pipeline
might be, but were not questioned about the potential costs.
Botas brought in "university professors", who told
the villagers, incorrectly, that there were no safety or environmental
risks associated with the project. The questionnaire noted that
the pipeline is a Turkish government project "of high economic
and strategic importance" to the country. The people who
live along the route (some of whom are Kurds) are likely to have
interpreted this as a coded warning that they speak out at their
peril. Even the fact-finding mission was stopped and questioned
by police.
Though the construction of the pipeline
will destroy homes, fields and roads and damage many people's
livelihoods, only a minority of those it affects are likely to
receive compensation. Most of the land along the route is either
not officially registered, or is held in the name of dead people.
BP's partner has told the villagers that it will compensate only
those whose names are on the official register. No compensation
at all has been offered to the fishing communities affected by
the construction of the tanker port at the end of the line.
Violations of this kind have been common
practice in the oil industry for years, but what is new and astonishing
about BP's project is the contract struck between the oil companies
and the government of Turkey, a copy of which the fact-finding
mission has obtained. The contract suggests that, far from being
a model project led by an "accountable" corporation,
the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline sets new standards for corporate impunity
and domination. The pipeline's "host government agreement"
effectively grants the corporations executive power over the
government.
The contract overrides all Turkish laws
except the constitution. It insulates the oil companies from
any change in either Turkish law or international law: if, for
example, new taxes or new environmental or health and safety
rules are introduced, the agreement takes priority. In effect,
it forces Turkey to flout international law in order to protect
the consortium. BP appears to be legally exempt from paying compensation
to anyone affected by oil spills or other impacts of the pipeline
project. Turkey has promised that its security forces will defend
the consortium from "civil disturbances", but neither
the government nor the companies are obliged by the agreement
to respect human rights. BP may terminate the contract at any
time. Turkey may not.
What BP and its partners have done, in
other words, is to negotiate a contract which has the same effect
as the multilateral agreement on investment, the charter for
corporate rights drawn up in secret by governments and corporations
five years ago, but dropped when it caused an international outcry.
The company which has promoted itself in Johannesburg as the
exemplar of corporate responsibility, which has promised to respect
the rule of law and "be held accountable" for its actions,
has exempted itself from effective democratic control.
If BP - by common consent the most environmentally
and socially responsible of all big companies - is prepared to
play by these rules, it is hard to see why we should believe
any of the promises made by big business in Johannesburg. Corporations
will take what they can: when there is a conflict between profitability
and the environment or human rights, the profits come first.
Voluntary agreements, this case suggests, simply do not work.
Big business will protect human rights and the environment only
when it is forced to do so.
George Monbiot
is a columnist for the Guardian. We encourage you to visit his
website at: www.monbiot.com
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