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- Paper Pulp Mills - Uruguay
- Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
- Climate Change and Human Rights
Gore Speaks to Norwegians on Global Warming
Environmental NGOs meet in Parallel to Discuss Gaps in Corporate Accountability
Swedish-Norwegian Bank Nordea Accused of Human Rights Violations at OECD Forum
March 30, 2007 – Oslo, Norway. Al Gore spoke yesterday to a packed audience at the Oslo Conference Center, which included the Queen of Norway and the Royal Prince who invited themselves to the event when they found out Al Gore would be present. Gore presented his now famous climate change slides (translated into Norwegian for the conference) sending an alert on global warming and called on Norwegians to do their part to avoid an inevitable tragedy to the planet's ecological collapse if the world does not react now.
Gore, as usual, joked about his failed bid for the US presidency, but was more emotional in his reach towards Norwegian citizens to get behind his campaign to save the planet from rising temperatures. He criticized what he called unfounded arguments that the evidence is anything but certain on the steady rise in global temperature. Gore pointed to the need for politicians to dump skepticism on global warming and joked that it was a good thing that “politicians” were a “renewable resource”!
The conference, hosted by the Norwegian Government which has expressed interest in leading the evolution of discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), brought together local and global actors working on CSR, to discuss challenges that still remain to ensure that corporations are responsible on social and environmental impacts.
Civil society groups, and even some corporate actors, drew attention to the need to clearer and enforceable regulations and legislation. A missing “bottom up” approach, grounded on human rights, and binding legal norms on CSR, remain the greatest weakness and hindrance to making real and tangible advances on corporate conduct on a global scale, said Daniel Taillant, Director of CEDHA, the Argentine based civil society organization attending the conference.
CEDHA was in Norway and Sweden this week for a hearing against Nordea, an ubiquitous Scandinavian bank, for alleged complicity in human rights violations and systematic lack of transparency in providing information to local stakeholders about the social and environmental impacts of their investments. “Nordea's lack of transparency on human rights compliance is precisely the type of problem we need to address if we really want to move the CSR agenda”, stated Taillant. CEDHA called on the Norwegian government to address such difficult questions if they want to move the bar on CSR.
Amnesty International produced a report on Nordea in June of 2006, in which they indicate that Nordea does not address human rights in their operations, and although Nordea subscribes to voluntary guidelines like the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprise, they “do not systematically follow up the application of the Guidelines” and that “Nordea has no systematic reporting on overall human rights performance”. Amnesty also recommends that Nordea “improve stakeholder dialogue by systematically reporting on the goals and performance regarding human rights risk-management within its operations”.
In the case against Nordea filed by CEDHA to the Swedish and Norwegian governments through the OECD National Contact Points, and now in review, CEDHA alleges that Nordea has violated the OECD guidelines both due to its complicity in human rights violations in a controversial pulp mill investment in Uruguay, but also because it has refused to give information to stakeholders. CEDHA approached five other international banks on the controversial case, including ING Group, the Nordic Investment Bank, BBVA, CESCE, and Calyon. All engaged with stakeholders on different levels. Nordea refused.
Last May Nordea said to CEDHA in a letter: “Nordea is in no position to take part in a public debate, or any other kind of debate with a third-party, around details of our clients' business project” , referring to the Botnia pulp mill controversy. This corporate attitude, argue civil society groups, show that Nordea prefers to hold client confidentiality (a legal principle devised to protect corporate competitiveness) above its human rights and environmental obligations to stakeholders. CEDHA argues that while this argument is quite common from corporations refusing to disclose information, it is legally unfounded, and in violation of international human rights law. It was this decision by Nordea to withhold information that drove CEDHA to file a complaint for violations to the OECD Guidelines.
While in Oslo, CEDHA met with the Nordic Investment Bank, based in Finland and also a financier of the Botnia pulp mill, in what have been ongoing dialogues with NIB and stakeholders about its controversial investment. Other meetings were pending with the Norwegian Council of Ethics overseeing investment in Norway's petroleum fund, and with the Central Bank to discuss the pulp mill conflict.
The first hearing of the case against Nordea was held last week in Stockholm. Representatives from CEDHA, Nordea and the Swedish and Norwegian governments (through their OECD National Contact Points) attended. Discussions of the meeting are confidential until minutes are negotiated between the parties and made public. Stakeholders, and CEDHA, hope the forum will help advance dialogue with Nordea.
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