Tag Archives: human rights

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Reputational Risk Under MNCs Environmental Violations

by Sumiah Bagazi

 

Multinational Companies (MNCs) have negative impacts on human rights, especially the right to a clean environment. MNCs have caused deterioration of the environment and wide range of human rights violations, such as displacement; and threats to life, expression, health, and property rights protected by the human rights declaration. A Host state constitution, law, and international commitments govern the MNCs operations, including human rights.

The responsibility to respect environmental standards is spread among all stakeholders. Host states, home states, and MNCs could be reluctant to implementing human rights. Nonetheless, not only should host and home states enforce human rights on MNCs because of their human rights ratification but also prevent reputational risks. States’ active or passive participation in environmental degradation raises reputational risks that eventually causes financial loses to all parties, host state, home state, and the MNCs itself. This blog will examine reputational risks to MNCs, host state, and home state as a result of MNCs’ environmental and human rights abuses.

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militarization

“Hopelessly Outmatched” – Keeping an eye on the mass murder of indigenous populations and environmental activists globally

by Adam Bentley

 

During the course of my Human Rights, the Development and Community Resilience we have analyzed several cases in which violence has been inflicted upon local indigenous populations for protesting the degradation of their environment and land. One of these cases was the Social and Economic Rights Action Center and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (SERAC) v. Nigeria brought before the African Commission on Human & Peoples Rights. 1 In this case Nigerian security forces have “attacked, burned and destroyed several Ogoni villages and homes under the pretext of dislodging officials and supporters of the Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP).2 In this class, we also watched a video that documented the murders of environmental activists around the globe. Horrified by the sheer disregard of human life and their environment, I was inspired to conduct research on the tactical violence inflicted upon indigenous populations and environmental activists seeking to preserve the environment, to analyze exactly how prevalent this issue is, what locations this violence is most concentrated in, and most importantly where do these armed forces come from?

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The Depletion of Niger Delta and Human Rights of the Ogonis Population

by Larissa Brito de Senna

 

Niger Delta is equivalent to 853 km of coastline shared with the Mud Coast, the Barrier-Lagoon Complex, the Arcuate Niger Delta, and the Strand Coast. The British-Dutch multinational oil and gas corporation found crude oil in a village near the Niger Delta in 1956 and after exploring the area and settling by the river, Shell began commercializing oil from the area in 1958.

This event only opened doors for several other multi-corporations to start exploring the country, as a whole new instrument of enrichment and profitable production at low costs. Nowadays, Nigeria is largest oil producer in Africa, being the sixth biggest producer in the world and the first country in the list of the most powerful nation when it comes to potential in oil and gas producer. From the initial 5,100 barrels per day during the oil discovery in 1956, this number absurdly increased to 2.5 million barrels per day.

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