JOHANNESBURG, Jan 17 (IPS) – From Iraq to Nigeria, multinational corporations are ignoring human rights, entrenching a culture of abuse and impunity that is difficult to eradicate, a leading anti-apartheid activist warns.
Kader Asmal, a former South African minister of education, says the abuses run from environmental degradation around the world to the more than 90,000 security contractors, engaged in murky multi-billion-dollar businesses, in war-torn Iraq.
“The contracts awarded lack accountability and transparency under international laws. Many of the companies, run by powerful countries, are liable for war crimes,” said Asmal, a lawyer and a member of South Africa‘s parliament. No official record exists of the number of security firms in Iraq, some of which are believed to have been set up illegally.
But the Washington Post, quoting the military’s first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield, said on Dec. 6, 2006, that about 100,000 U.S. government contractors operate in Iraq. They are involved in a range of military-related activities, including supplying army equipment, building military barracks and providing private security to senior Iraqi officials.
Like Asmal, the more than 150 participants who took part in a conference organised by the Pretoria-based Foundation for Human Rights on “business, accountability and human rights” in Johannesburg, Jan.16-17, generally agreed that the campaign to inculcate a culture of human rights in business is moving slowly.
There is either a lack of interest, or reluctance, amongst entrepreneurs, said conference participants.
“The word ‘human rights’ is a bogeyman for business,” Yasmin Sooka, executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights, told IPS. “Business doesn’t like human rights.”
“This campaign is, therefore, a process. In South Africa we just emerged from apartheid 10 years ago. It’s going to take time for us to catch up with the rest of the world,” she said.
South Africa is learning the hard way. “We need a code of conduct for South African companies operating in the rest of Africa. I attended a meeting with well educated Africans who complained about the behaviour of South African companies. We must look at this issue. We don’t want these companies to damage South Africa‘s reputation,” Asmal said.
Emphasising the need for a strict code of conduct, he said: “I am concerned that South African companies do not observe proper labour laws of the countries they operate in.”
In the European Union and North America, business is slowly embracing human rights. Christopher Avery says 10 years ago he could not use the word human rights in addressing the business community.
“That would cut off the discussion immediately. I used euphemisms such as the rule of law as a cover for human rights. Now the business world accepts the words ‘human rights’,” said Avery, who runs the U.S.-based website business-humanrights.com with a membership of 3,500 companies.
In a study published in December 2006, the Geneva-based Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that North American and European companies are leaders in their inclusion of human rights standards in areas such as supply chain management.
The study, “Business Recognition of Human Rights: Global Patterns, Regional and Sectoral Variations”, said two-thirds of the U.S. companies in the sample and about 60 percent of the Europeans address human rights concerns.
“Some 66 percent of the companies recognise both freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Nearly 75 percent of European companies recognise both rights. In contrast, 63 percent of North American companies and around 50 percent of companies from each of the remaining regions — Asia, Pacific and Africa — recognise these rights,” said the study, authored by Michael Wright and Amy Lehr.
The study also looked at child labour, a serious problem in Africa and Asia. It found that “European and North American firms average around 65 percent recognition for abolition of forced and child labour. European and North American firms average around 65 percent recognition for both prohibitions, Asia and Pacific companies around 50 percent, while three of the five African companies mention the prohibition against slavery and forced labour, and a mere 25 percent mention the abortion of child labour.”
Sufian Bukurura, a professor of law at South Africa‘s University of KwaZulu Natal, said the United Nations started making serious links between human rights, business and development only in 1989.
Even so, Bukurura said, self-interests often influence government decisions. He cited the British government’s dropping a fraud probe into a Saudi arms deal in December 2006, as something based on London‘s interests rather than on combating corruption.
The United Nations Global Compact, established in 2000, engages firms in implementing human rights, labour standards, environmental and anti-corruption practices. It has more than 3,000 members, with over half of the companies from developing countries..
“When I was in the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, I encouraged the Commission to promote the norms of business ethics. But most businesses were opposed and terrified of the norm,” Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the Johannesburg gathering.
“Some, however, borrowed the norm, modified it and distributed it to other companies. As a person with no business background, I learned a lot from the networking and discussions that followed,” said Robinson, founder in 2002 of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative.
Also addressing the event, Frene Ginwala, vice chancellor of the University of KwaZulu Natal, criticised organisations like Transparency International for focusing on bribe takers instead of on bribe givers. “We are not going to tackle the problem of corruption until we involve citizens,” she said.
Hassan Lorgat, chairman of the South African branch of Transparency International, said the terrain of corruption is dominated by multinationals with money. “My role is to push for a development agenda within transparency international,” he told IPS.
When former Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu was appointed chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Sampie Terreblanche, professor of economics at South Africa‘s Stellenbosch University, appealed, along with a colleague, for a Business Truth Commission.
The aim was to investigate allegations of apartheid era-crimes committed by multinational companies such as the mining giant, Anglo-American. “Some of these companies assisted apartheid and exploited black people for a century,” he said in a conversation with IPS.
Unfortunately, local entrepreneurs were conspicuously absent from the conference. An organiser told IPS that they had invited business people from the local community, but they didn’t turn up.
One businessman, who requested his name be withheld, told IPS it was unfortunate for the conference to be criticising the business community for not adhering to the principle of human rights. Only constructive engagement, he said, would address human rights issues in business.
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