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Vatican Issues Statement on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights June 25th, 2014
His Excellency Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva submitted a statement on the UN Guiding Principles at the 26th Session of the Human Rights Council on June 11th. The statement, titled “Report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises” is excellent, calling for the need to broaden dissemination of the principles, attain scale in implementation, build trust among stakeholders and overcome barriers to effective remedy.
The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Guiding Principles) were endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 16 June 2011. The Guiding Principles provide an authoritative global standard for addressing adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity around the world.
The Guiding Principles set out, in three pillars, principles concerning the State duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and access to remedy for victims of human rights abuse.
The following gives a flavor of the statement that reflects fully the Vatican’s concern for the impact of powerful economic structures and activity on the lives of ordinary people:
“The ability of international corporations to partially escape territoriality and carve for themselves an existence “in-between” national legislation is rightly one of the concerns of the International Community. Their mobility in terms of their country of incorporation, management, production, and financial flows allows them to navigate national legislations, take advantage of regulatory arbitrage and choose the jurisdictions that may offer the best return in terms of profits. Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel”, and other religious leaders in the International Community have repeatedly pointed out that profit cannot be the only rationale of business activity. Transnational corporations are part of the human family and as such their activity should abide by the standard of human rights.”
“Another point of concern to the International Community is the inherent complexity of the transnational corporations regarding their diverse operating models (modus operandi) which makes them very hard to monitor and supervise. The resulting absence of robust and timely transparency makes it very difficult to measure compliance with rules and legislations. Human rights violations all too often occur out of utter neglect toward consequences that would have been foreseeable had anyone cared to think about them. These sorts of “neglects” are not casual, but systemic.”
Investor Coalition Successfully Urges Natural Gas Companies to Address Fracking Impacts June 17th, 2014
Under pressure from a coalition of investors for the fifth year in a row, major oil and gas companies including ExxonMobil, EQT, and Occidental Petroleum agreed to report on steps being taken to mitigate the adverse environmental and community impacts of their hydraulic fracturing operations.
The coalition of investors, which includes faith-based and socially responsible investors, as well as major public pension funds, filed shareholder proposals at Chevron, ExxonMobil, EQT, EOG, Pioneer Natural Resources, and Occidental Petroleum earlier this year, raising concerns about the risks associated with the impacts of company hydraulic fracturing operations. In response to corporate commitments, shareholders withdrew the proposals at ExxonMobil, EQT, Occidental Petroleum, and Pioneer Natural. Nearly a third of shareholders voted in favor of the proposals presented at EOG and Chevron’s annual meetings of shareholders.
The Missionary Oblates co-filed on the fracking proposal with Chevron, and has engaged a number of oil and gas companies on emissions reductions
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The JPIC Office Welcomes Brother Michael Tembo June 8th, 2014
The JPIC Office welcomes Michael Tembo as he joins us as an Oblate intern for the summer months. Brother Michael is studying at the Oblate seminary in San Antonio, and will focus on integrity of creation this summer. His biography is available here.
Join “Campaign Nonviolence”. May 19th, 2014
Pax Christi USA, of which OMI JPIC is a member, has endorsed Campaign Nonviolence, a movement to promote non-violence that is being circulated through Pace e Bene.
This campaign works to connect the dots between poverty, militarism, racism and the environment, and is promoting study groups around the country as well as direct action to serve as a public witness. Campaign Nonviolence will take action September 21-27 in cities across the United States as part of the long-term struggle to abolish war, end poverty, reverse climate change, and to build a culture of peace.
Please visit the Pace e Bene website where you will find a wealth of information and suggestions for concrete actions to support the Campaign.
Climate Change Will Strike the Poorest Countries Hardest April 30th, 2014
Late monsoons in Bangladesh in 2013 affected all rain-fed agriculture.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading climate science body, declared in its recent report that global warming is wreaking havoc “on all continents and across the oceans,” with the worst yet to come. But by far the most severe impacts will strike the poorest countries that bear little or no historical responsibility for causing climate change, the report said.
“Those countries who have contributed least to the manifestation of this problem are in jeopardy of being the most vulnerable to it,” said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and a coordinating lead author of the IPCC report. “The poor, the young, the old and the people who live along the coasts will be hit the hardest.”
Continue reading this article from Inside Climate News…
