By Noelle Tennis

This May, ExxonMobil found an unlikely attendee at its annual shareholder meeting. Having filed its first shareholder resolution since it was founded in 1961, Amnesty International is pressuring ExxonMobil to adopt a "comprehensive, transparent, and verifiable human rights policy."

It's not surprising that Amnesty International is promoting human rights. That's what they're known for. But Amnesty International is known for engaging with governments over human rights abuses. Why have they chosen to enter the corporate boardroom? What do human rights have to do with business?

A Community of Stakeholders
What Amnesty International has come to realize, and what ICCR members have known for over thirty years, is that businesses have responsibilities beyond their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.

For this reason, ICCR and other organizations involved in sponsoring shareholder resolutions have been actively pressing companies to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR requires corporations to be accountable to a series of "community stakeholders" which include-in addition to shareholders-employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, and society at large.

Promoting the human rights of these community stakeholders has been on ICCR's agenda from the beginning. The first major involvement of ICCR members in human rights struggles began in 1971, focusing on apartheid South Africa. ICCR partners in South Africa urged religious investors to get companies to withdraw their business operations and financial ties until a democratically elected government dismantled the apartheid system.

More recently, ICCR members have been instrumental in getting companies like PepsiCo and Texaco to withdraw from Burma, a country where the military government has kept the democratically elected National League for Democracy and its leader, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, from assuming leadership.

And for more than fifteen years, religious investors have pressed companies operating in the Maquiladora sector of Mexico to pay a sustainable living wage, and to respect the right of workers to organize unions, two key human rights in the economic arena.

So why has Amnesty International chosen to file their first shareholder resolution, focused on human rights, against ExxonMobil?

ExxonMobil and Human Rights
ExxonMobil operates in a number of countries with poor records for respecting human rights, including Chad, Cameroon, Angola, Colombia, Indonesia, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. Doing business in a country with human rights abuses does not automatically make a company guilty of those abuses. But without a means by which to manage the risks brought about by human rights controversies, a company may very well be judged to be complicit in such human rights abuses.

ExxonMobil is currently leading a consortium to build a 650-mile pipeline from the Doba oil fields in southern Chad to the country's Atlantic coast. Chad's deplorable human rights record includes the reported killing of over 200 unarmed civilians by security forces in the oil-producing region.

Construction of the pipeline could aggravate deep-seated conflicts between the government and opposition movements, while increasing the militarization of the oil field region. Amnesty International, therefore, along with its co-filers-the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Sinsinawa Dominicans, Wisdom Charitable Trust (Daughters of Wisdom), New York City pension funds, Trillium Asset Management, and Walden Asset Management-are calling on ExxonMobil to adopt a human rights policy that would uphold and support the principles and values contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Benefits of a Human Rights Policy
It is in the best interest of business to adopt and enforce such a human rights policy. Some of the major benefits could include increased worker productivity and retention, reduced operating costs, increased stock value, and enhanced company reputation.

To the contrary, responsibility for or complicity in human rights violations can severely damage a corporation's reputation, one of its most valuable assets. Adherence to an effective human rights policy can help prevent or reduce the risk of adverse publicity, consumer boycotts, lawsuits, and divestment campaigns brought about by a company's involvement in human rights abuses.

Corporate profitability, though important, is not the only impetus for businesses to be involved in human rights issues. Over the past two decades, a remarkable shift in power from governments to multinational corporations has occurred. While 80 percent of investment money flowing from northern industrial countries to developing nations was transferred from government to government in the early 1990s, by the latter half of the same decade 80 percent of those same investments flowed from transnational corporations to governments.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
With this shift in power comes a shift-or rather, a sharing-of responsibility. In short, companies have a moral responsibility to uphold human rights in all arenas in which they operate. This evolving notion of corporate responsibility is supported by the bulwark of human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

The best-known and most cited human rights document in the world, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is almost universally accepted. It states: "Every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive…to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measure, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance." This includes the world's corporations.

What is more, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights serves as the foundation of international human rights law. The International Council on Human Rights Policy recently published a report that discusses the extent to which international human rights law imposes legal obligations on private corporations. While it is generally agreed that private actors-including companies-are held responsible for preventing abuses by the states in which they operate, the international legal system is evolving to impose direct legal obligations on companies as well.

These developing direct legal obligations might help to prevent those companies wooed solely by the business case for human rights from reneging on commitments to human rights when they pose a threat to profits. To be sure, businesses have a responsibility to their investors; they must make a profit. But the commitment to human rights is a long-term commitment focused on long-term success, not short-term gain.

As a coalition of religious investors, ICCR recognizes that there is a moral obligation for all organs of society-corporations included-to uphold and promote human rights. ICCR believes that the dignity of all members of humanity must be upheld through the business practices of the world's corporations. This not only includes preventing human rights abuses from taking place, but ensuring that business operations contribute to the sustainable development of all its stakeholders.

While many tend to think of human rights in the narrow sphere of political or civil rights, such as the right to free speech or freedom from torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes numerous economic, social and cultural rights in its list of thirty human rights guaranteed to every individual. Among these are the right to just and favorable conditions of work, the right to join labor unions, the right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to participate in the cultural life of one's community.

With this in mind, ICCR's Global Corporate Accountability program proposes that an effective human rights policy should:

· Support essential human rights documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO), through direct reference to and support of these documents.

· Prevent discrimination based on ethnic origin, sex, color, language, national or social origin, economic status, religion, political or consciously held beliefs, birth, disabilities, or other status.

· Promote community engagement and participation, especially with indigenous communities and leaders.

· Prohibit the use of all forms of slave labor, including forced labor, coerced prison labor, child labor, and the use of chattel slaves.

· Ensure safe and healthy working conditions.

· Pay employees a sustainable living wage that would enable them to provide for their basic needs as well as set aside a small amount of money for the future.

· Enable employees to exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and collective bargaining without discrimination.

· Guarantee that any security arrangements made by corporations protect human rights and uphold international standards for law enforcement.

· Establish means by which to monitor the corporation's and their suppliers' compliance with codes of conduct and international human rights standards through involvement with local human rights, religious and labor organizations.

· Lay out human rights criteria for country selection and withdrawal.

· Explicate ways in which corporate influence can influence the status of human rights in a particular country for the better.

Tentative Progress
A few companies have already taken steps to begin building a human rights policy. Alcoa, a global producer of aluminum products and components, recently added a section on human rights to its "Vision, Values and Principles" that includes policies on children and young workers, freedom of engagement, equality of opportunity, compensation, freedom of association, and relationships with indigenous people.

The Gap includes basic labor rights in its Code of Vendor Conduct and has put substantial resources into internal and independent monitoring of supplier factories. Reebok's human rights program includes monitoring of its supplier factories and engagement with non-governmental and labor organizations to conduct worker education and training.

While these are substantial developments, much still remains to be done in order to construct a more comprehensive human rights policy. Further measures include the establishment of a board committee on human rights with a human rights officer located in each country where the company operates, as well as the implementation of training and education for all personnel on the company's human rights policy. To this end, organizations like Amnesty International and ICCR will continue pressing corporations like ExxonMobil to meet the financial needs of shareholders without compromising the human needs of all stakeholders, both present and future. © 2002 ICCR

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