Oil Companies Agree to Protect Rights in Remote Areas

DAVID STOUT / New York Times 20dec00

WASHINGTON — Several big oil and mining companies have agreed to principles meant to safeguard human rights while protecting employees and property in remote parts of the world, the State Department said today.

The department announced that the companies, human rights organizations and the governments of the United States and Britain have agreed to a set of voluntary guidelines after months of negotiations.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said she was pleased with the accord, which she said embodied precepts "that we hope and expect will become the global standard in the oil and mining industries."

Human rights organizations said that the rules of conduct were an encouraging step, but that their voluntary nature meant there was still no formal regulation for the conduct of the companies abroad nor a system for monitoring possible abuses.

The guidelines address situations that were once little noticed but that, with the global economy and instant communications, have become more common and more publicized. Diplomats and others who have studied the problems said today that they arose when residents near mines, drilling fields or pipelines resented their government leaders and law enforcement officials and saw the companies as being in league with them. In such cases, explosive ingredients are present, they said.

The countries of greatest concern include Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia and Nigeria. Oil exploration in Nigeria, for instance, has seen deadly pipeline explosions that have killed hundreds of people. Oil companies and the government have faulted vandals for pipeline breaks. But some people fault the government for not enforcing safety codes.

Under the guidelines, companies agree not to hire security forces implicated in human rights abuses, and they have to ensure that police equipment provided by the companies is not used to violate citizens' rights.

The accord states that companies should pressure governments to make security arrangements "transparent and accessible to the public." When there are reports of human rights abuses, "companies should actively monitor the status of investigations and press for their proper resolution," one guideline states.

An assistant secretary of state who heads the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Harold Koh, said, "The global marketplace is a tremendously powerful tool for promoting freedom."

"No government, even the most committed, can promote human rights alone," Mr. Koh said.

Those agreeing to the guidelines include BP Amoco, Chevron, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Conoco, Shell and Texaco, along with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups.

Mr. Koh's deputy, Bennett Freeman, called the accord "the start of a process, not an end." Department officials acknowledged that some of the biggest multinational names in business were not listed.

Aron Cramer, vice president of Business for Social Responsibility, whose 1,400 member companies pledge to improve business practices, acknowledged in an interview from San Francisco that the accord was but a beginning, and a nonbinding one at that. Still, Mr. Cramer said, what was announced is significant. Not so long ago, he said, such an accord would have been "unlikely, bordering on unthinkable."