December 11, 1998

People or profits?

Quig Tingley and Dr. Owens Wiwa

The next time you dash into your warm car, head over to a shopping mall to buy gifts and toys, stop for a minute and think: How many people died so you could have oil and fuel for your car, or worked all day in a sweat shop to make soccer balls, running shoes, T-shirts or handbags?

Consumers have a moral obligation to think about this, said Dr. Owens Wiwa, a research scientist at the University of Toronto. His brother was Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian human-rights activist executed in 1995 by the country's military dictatorship for speaking out against the impact of Shell Oil on the environment, and the Ogoni tribe way of life.

"The question to ask is: How do these products get here?" Wiwa was speaking as part of a panel on human rights and the role of transnational corporations during last month's international human rights conference, sponsored by the Canadian Human Rights Foundation and the University of Alberta.

There's a double standard in their business ethics, said Wiwa: one for the West and one for developing countries. "Until we make it unprofitable for businesses to continue in despotic regimes, they will continue as is." He argued for clear-cut sanctions "on businesses that continue to support or act as pillars of despotic regimes." Hitting them where it hurts - the bottom line - will force transnationals to respect human rights in developing countries, said Wiwa.

"We are not against companies wanting to create wealth," said Wiwa, who pointed out Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects property, "but we are against the fact that we could die if they want to create wealth for themselves."

Others suggested more radical measures: Why not just get rid of these large multinationals? Like totalitarian regimes, these corporations should not be accepted in society, asked a man during question period.

That would be "a serious mistake," responded another audience member, Ed Broadbent. A former president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, now a professor at Simon Fraser University, Broadbent said as a new century approaches, the focus on accountability shifts from government and voluntary sectors to the private and corporate. "One thing we ought to have learned this century, those of us particularly on the left, is there's a problem of concentration of power, namely state power. We do not want to replace, in my view, corporate power with cumbersome, inefficient and frequently rights-denying state power. The immense challenge.is to make that corporate sector accountable."

It's an argument the U of A's Dr. Wen Ran Jiang believes will work. Ensuring multinationals follow a human rights code with a combination of supervision, regulation and volunteerism is key, says Jiang. The assistant professor of political science goes even further. "There's no way, in practicality, you can stop trading with [these] countries. It's impossible."

He's seen impoverished teen-aged girls working in factories in central, rural China, a region not yet swept up in the economic reforms of the country. Often, the export market is their lifeline, says Jiang. The impact of ceasing to trade with despotic regimes would be devastating on the Canadian economy as well as in developing countries, and would hurt the human rights cause overall. "This fairy-tale scenario of continuing trade will improve human rights is wrong. But it's also wrong for radical non-governmental agencies to say cut off trade altogether."

One doesn't have to look far for human-rights violations, said panelist Warren Allmand, president of the Montreal-based International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. Global ties such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) do not contain "social charters," or minimum standards for labor and social programs. As a result, the countries involved feel pressures to lower taxes, cut social programs and dilute labor and environmental standards in order to attract and accommodate international business investment.

"These policies, in my view, resulted in obscene situations where people are sleeping on frozen streets, eating out of garbage cans and dying from treatable diseases," said Allmand. All this flies in the face of the declaration's Articles 22-26, which spell out rights to food, housing, education, pensions and protection against unemployment. These are "rights, not options," said Allmand. "In the context of global free trade, one could say that transnational corporations are choosing profits over people and human rights," said Warren Allmand.

But transnational profits and human rights protection are not necessarily mutually exclusive. That's what Quig Tingley, a partner of the Body Shop Canada, argued, as the corporate representative. "We hear much about free trade but little about fair trade," said Tingley. "Human rights are not fads; they're not marketing gimmicks; they're not costly and they're not impossible."

Tingley said protecting human rights and pursuing profits is not an either/or dilemma, but rather an "and." Held up as an example of a company cognizant of past mistakes and striving to make an impact in the area of human rights, the Body Shop has established a system to monitor suppliers for human and animal rights violations, without affecting its profits, said Tingley. If the Body Shop can do it, why can't other corporations? It will not happen overnight, but the threat of switching to another supplier can pressure one to clean up its act, suggested Tingley.

Sociologist Dr. Gordon Laxer, director of the Parkland Institute, a political economy research centre in the U of A's Faculty of Arts, says it's a matter of providing "economic citizenship - meaning people as a community have democratic control over their economy." He wants to see Mexicans controlling the Mexican economy and Indonesians doing the same in their country. Call it economic nationalism or local control, said Laxer, but it would probably offer a greater possibility for democratic and human rights than having economies controlled by huge transnationals.

"We have to strengthen democratic movements and we have to challenge the globalization model of transnationals." Agreements like NAFTA and MAI (Multi-lateral Agreement on Investment) are attempts to discipline governments, said Laxer. "When you restrict government, you're restricting the power of people to determine what happens in their own countries." Added Laxer: "I think we need international agreements that stem what transnationals can do.

The solution isn't clear. What is clear, however, is the scope of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as written in the preamble. It applies to "every individual and every organ of society" - a fitting choice of words considering 51 corporations are among the 100 largest economic entities in the world, next to 49 states.

"Business is faster, wealthier and more creative than government," said the Body Shop's Tingley, "but if there are no standards of ethical behavior, God help us all."

Folio front page

Office of Public Affairs

University of Alberta