Exorcising Leopold's Ghost: Holding Canadian Corporations to Account
In her book, Making a Killing: How and Why Corporations Use Armed Force to Do Business (Random House Canada, 2003), Canadian journalist Madeleine Drohan describes how King Leopold II of Belgium annexed and ruled Africa's Congo from 1884 to 1906. The Congo was not a Belgian colony but rather the King's own personal business enterprise, and he sold shares in his venture to Europe's wealthy elite. Drohan notes that King Leopold has probably never been equaled for the savagery he inflicted on the Congolese people in his pursuit of profit. The death toll during his reign has been estimated to be between 8 and 10 million people, half of the Congo's population at the time.
Less than a century later, the scramble for the rich resources of the Congo continues, led by a number of neighbouring countries as well as by multinational corporations from Canada, France, South Africa and the United States. In the lead-up to the 1997 overthrow of the dictator Joseph Mobutu, multinational corporations made cash advances to guerilla factions to secure future rights to the mineral resources in the country. These advances were used to finance the conflict, and to help ensure the outcome was in the interest of the corporations. As the Congo collapsed into anarchy and violence, it was once again ruthlessly pillaged. Between 1997 and 2002, an estimated 3.5 million people died.
The part played by foreign corporate interests in fueling and prolonging the conflict in the Congo is not unique. Indeed, profiting from human misery has a long and sordid history. What is less publicly recognized is that Canadian companies are part of this problem. A UN expert panel named eight Canadian companies operating in the Congo as violating the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines for responsible business conduct. Canadian resource companies are operating in virtually all regions of the world and some have inevitably become entangled in conflicts. And some have become complicit in human rights abuses by financing or providing material support to conflicting parties. For many Canadian social justice organizations, this is one of the most pressing public policy concerns of our time.
Over the past year, members of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC), including Inter Pares, have been examining these issues and engaged with parliamentarians about how government should deal with these concerns. At the very least, we have argued, government should ensure that companies engaged in conflict zones should not be eligible for public subsidies, including investments from the Canada Pension Plan. However, the best approach is to develop a regulatory framework that imposes legally enforceable obligations on companies operating internationally to comply with human rights standards.
In 2005, following testimonies presented by civil society groups, Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued a report recommending that the Government of Canada establish clear legal norms that would hold Canadian companies accountable for human rights or environmental violations associated with their activities. The report also encouraged that government support and subsidies to companies be contingent upon their meeting human rights and other social responsibility standards.
To date, the government's response to the Standing Committee report has been tepid. The government, along with industry, offers only "voluntary" approaches to these problems. In response to public pressure, the government has proposed a series of roundtables across the country in 2006 to solicit input from Canadians about these issues.
Enforceable standards of corporate social responsibility are long past due. In recent years we have witnessed unacceptable behaviour on the part of some Canadian companies in places such as Sudan, Colombia, Burma and the Congo. Corporations are public institutions, created by legal charter. If government has the right to establish corporate entities by charter, it must also retain the responsibility to withdraw such charters when there is evidence of abuse of basic standards of human rights. It is time we buried the legacy of King Leopold, once and for all.
Resources
The Inter Pares Occasional Paper Beyond the Politics of the Possible: Corporations and the Pursuit of Social Justice is a discussion on corporate responsibility which argues for a fundamental reform of corporations and the assumptions under which they exist and operate. Available on line at www.interpares.ca/en/publications/pdf/beyond_politics_possible.pdf.
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