Global Witness - Breaking the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption
Global Witness urges government to act on human rights report
Press Release – 16/12/2009
Global Witness today broadly welcomed a report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) and called on the UK government to heed the recommendations and do more to prevent UK companies operating overseas from being complicit in human rights abuses.
The report, Any of our business? Human rights and the UK private sector, lists several companies operating in conflict areas as being involved in grave human rights abuses. These include Afrimex and Amalgamated Metals Corporation (AMC), companies which trade in minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), about which Global Witness gave written and verbal submissions to the committee.
"This report is welcome but it highlights the inadequate action so far taken by the British government against companies who are violating human rights," said Gavin Hayman, Campaigns Director at Global Witness. "It should act as a wake up call for tougher standards and better regulation of companies that exploit natural resources in conflict or high risk areas."
Global Witness backed the report's finding that there was an undue reliance on voluntary standards, which are often not enforced, and said that greater emphasis should be placed on legislative remedies. So far the UK Government has failed to take adequate action to prevent or deter abuses by UK companies operating in conflict areas, in particular in the DRC.
Global Witness's submissions to the JCHR showed that UK companies operating in conflict or high risk areas are at a greater risk of committing and exacerbating human rights violations. In these places, there is often fighting and widespread repression, and governments are often unwilling or unable to assume their responsibilities in safeguarding human rights.
In August 2008, Afrimex was found by the UK National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises to have failed to ensure that its trading activities did not support armed conflict and forced labour in the eastern DRC. Despite this clear finding against Afrimex, the JCHR report says that the Government is still "considering how to follow up on a negative decision of the UK NCP."
"The Government must make immediate efforts to make sure the National Contact Point's final statements have more teeth, and that companies which continue to operate in violation of the OECD guidelines are duly sanctioned," said Hayman.
The latest UN Group of Experts report on the DRC released in November 2009, states that a company closely affiliated with Afrimex is still operating in the DRC.
"With respect to Afrimex, the UK Government should have taken steps to sanction the company long before Global Witness' intervention. These important cases should not be left to civil society to undertake: the Government must take a more proactive role," said Hayman.
Global Witness calls on the UK government to:
- Enforce its existing laws on the investigation and prosecution of human rights abuses stemming from corporate activities in conflict and high risk areas
- Make necessary legislative reforms or create new laws that apply extra-territorially and that oblige UK companies to conduct sufficient due diligence in their supply chains
- Strengthen and monitor the implementation of existing voluntary codes such as the OECD Guidelines (i.e. ensure that they have teeth)
- Issue public warning for UK companies to cease/hold off on operations until they can ensure that they are doing ‘no harm' with respect to human rights
- Require UK-based financial institutions to have minimum human rights standards integrated into all their business with companies that operate in conflict or high risk areas
/ Ends
Contact: Seema Joshi +44 207 492 5890; Amy Barry +44 207 492 5858; +44 7980 664397
Global Witness's complaint against Afrimex under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
The UK National Contact Point's final statement
Global Witness's latest report on the Democratic Republic of Congo
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