The Canadian oil company Talisman has agreed to develop a human rights monitoring programme within a year, after its annual meeting was targeted last month by US pension fund representatives concerned about its activities in Sudan.
A resolution at the AGM had called on Talisman, which is Canada’s biggest oil and gas producer, to introduce a human rights programme within six months. But the proposal, led by the pension funds New York City Employee Retirement System and New York State Common Fund, was defeated when the company put forward a plan of its own to develop a programme over the next year.
Talisman has been criticised by human rights groups, which claim that revenues generated from its oil project in Sudan are being used by the government there to fuel a civil war that has so far claimed some 1.5million lives. A Canadian government investigation into Talisman’s operations in Sudan concluded earlier this year that oil development was exacerbating the war.
However, Talisman chief executive Jim Buckee said the company was doing all it could to prevent human rights abuses and and claimed Talisman always protested vigorously to the Sudanese government if it came across evidence of human rights abuses. ‘We think our presence helps and that if we withdraw then it will be taken up by somebody else who, I promise you, cares less than we do,’ he said.
The Talisman move came as a new study from Amnesty International claimed human rights abuses in Sudan were ‘clearly linked’ to oil operations.
In the report, Sudan: the human price of oil today, Amnesty says it does not condemn companies that work in countries where there is a high level of human rights violations, but asks that they:
raise issues with the government, such as the forced removal of people from their homes
ensure adequate human rights training for any security staff they employ to protect their facilities and personnel
give guarantees that the company’s infrastructure will not be used for military purposes.