Human rights abuses
The projects outlined in our campaign expose some of the appalling human rights impacts ECGD-backed projects have had on people across the world. The ECGD has repeatedly failed to ensure that the projects it supports uphold international human rights standards.
Partly this problem stems from the types of industry the ECGD supports – arms and fossil fuel infrastructure. That’s why we believe the ECGD should not support certain projects which have serious human rights impacts.
Construction of the ECGD-backed BTC pipeline was surrounded by accusations of human rights abuses (Photo: Nick Hildyard)
But the ECGD also fails to fully assess all of its projects for human rights impacts. This has become even more of a problem since 2010 when the government actually lowered its standards.
As a result of this change, smaller or short-term projects are exempt from assessment for human rights impacts – they are not even assessed to see whether they might involve child or forced labour. In fact ECGD does not even tell exporters that it has a policy on child or forced labour.
Even when ECGD does assess projects, it’s impact assessments are woefully inadequate. For example they do not consider whether a project will increase the potential for local conflict or whether it will impact on freedom of expression.
Perhaps it is little wonder that one ECGD supported project – the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – saw ECGD supported companies negotiating an agreement that would have created a human ‘rights-free corridor’ across three countries.
In 2011, Britain’s OECD representative ruled that the company that ECGD supported, BP, had violated international rules during the construction of the pipeline, by failing to investigate and respond to complaints from local people of intimidation by state security forces in Turkey. Despite this, the ECGD’s Annual Report 2011 lists the project as ‘compliant’ with international standards.
This points to another major problem with ECGD’s processes – there is no formal way an individual, group or community has access to justice if they are impacted by an ECGD supported project. The ECGD has no mechanism for complaints, nor is its performance routinely or independently assessed. There is not even a formal process for evaluation.
What we are calling for
- Insert a ‘Duty of care’ clause which means the ECGD has responsibility for those harmed by its projects, and those individuals, groups and communities have access to justice in court for any damage caused.
- Adopt a prohibitions list of activities that will not be supported by the ECGD because they are not conducive to sustainable development
- Implement a management and monitoring system to ensure the ECGD complies with wider government policy on human rights, the environment and sustainable development
Read more about our recommendations in the Network Manifesto