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Companies should not allow themselves to be bullied into quitting countries with poor human rights records just because pressure groups and politicians demand they do, BP’s chairman has said.
Peter Sutherland said BP’s experience of remaining in South Africa during the apartheid years convinced him that foreign businesses can often do far more good by acting as beacons of good practice inside a country than by occupying the moral high ground and withdrawing.
Sutherland, who is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International, said the idea of leaving a country where human rights abuses are known to occur ‘presupposes that [a company’s] presence is negative, contributing to the wrongdoing, rather than positive, contributing to the raising of human rights standards’.
He continued: ‘It presupposes that business is part of the problem, and it presupposes too that, if there are problems in a region or in a country, our speaking out or even withdrawing will help to solve it. [I] don’t believe this to be the case.’
Sutherland argued that BP had tried to be an ‘island of normality’ in South Africa’s deeply divided society while other companies left. ‘We advanced black people, and appointed a black person as the company’s national leader. We provided equal housing facilities for all staff, and after apartheid fell, Nelson Mandela expressed support for companies that took that approach. He expressed it personally to me in BP. The simplistic answer that might have been demanded by many ... was probably the wrong one, certainly in his view.’
Sutherland, whose remarks were published last month in a transcript of a recent business and human rights seminar in London, said BP now faced similar dilemmas in Zimbabwe.
He asked: ‘If you simply say, “We’ll cut off all aid, all trade and communication – we’re going to isolate and vilify, and therefore destroy the operation of a regime clearly acting in a way that contravenes basic norms of human society”, what in fact are you doing?
‘You have to judge it in the context of what you’re doing to that society and to the prospects of real change. You may be reinforcing the very regime that you’re trying to bring down. You may in reality be doing far more damage.’
Peter Sutherland said BP’s experience of remaining in South Africa during the apartheid years convinced him that foreign businesses can often do far more good by acting as beacons of good practice inside a country than by occupying the moral high ground and withdrawing.
Sutherland, who is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International, said the idea of leaving a country where human rights abuses are known to occur ‘presupposes that [a company’s] presence is negative, contributing to the wrongdoing, rather than positive, contributing to the raising of human rights standards’.
He continued: ‘It presupposes that business is part of the problem, and it presupposes too that, if there are problems in a region or in a country, our speaking out or even withdrawing will help to solve it. [I] don’t believe this to be the case.’
Sutherland argued that BP had tried to be an ‘island of normality’ in South Africa’s deeply divided society while other companies left. ‘We advanced black people, and appointed a black person as the company’s national leader. We provided equal housing facilities for all staff, and after apartheid fell, Nelson Mandela expressed support for companies that took that approach. He expressed it personally to me in BP. The simplistic answer that might have been demanded by many ... was probably the wrong one, certainly in his view.’
Sutherland, whose remarks were published last month in a transcript of a recent business and human rights seminar in London, said BP now faced similar dilemmas in Zimbabwe.
He asked: ‘If you simply say, “We’ll cut off all aid, all trade and communication – we’re going to isolate and vilify, and therefore destroy the operation of a regime clearly acting in a way that contravenes basic norms of human society”, what in fact are you doing?
‘You have to judge it in the context of what you’re doing to that society and to the prospects of real change. You may be reinforcing the very regime that you’re trying to bring down. You may in reality be doing far more damage.’
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