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Corporate responsibility and humanitarian action. What relations between the business and humanitarian worlds?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2010

Gilles Carbonnier
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Résumé

Les milieux économiques exercent depuis longtemps une influence majeure sur l'évolution géopolitique mondiale. Aujourd'hui, la communauté internationale et les médias s'intéressent de plus près aux questions de responsabilité des entreprises privées, et depuis peu au rôle des acteurs économiques dans les conflits armés. En parallèle, de nombreuses compagnies se sont dotées de codes de conduite qui s'inspirent de normes reconnues au plan international, notamment dans le domaine du droit du travail et des droits de l'homme. Sur cette toile de fond, il s'agit de bien cerner les divers objectifs qui motivent le monde des affaires et les organisations humanitaires a établir des ponts entre eux.

Les compagnies privées sont amenées à engager du personnel de sécurité pour protéger leurs installations et leur personnel lorsqu'elles opèrent dans des zones instables. De ce fait se pose la question de la pertinence du droit international humanitaire dans le contexte d'activités économiques privées. Le CICR a décidé de mettre en œuvre une stratégic spécifique envers lesfirmes qui opèrent en zones conflictuelles, et ce dans le but d'améliorer sa capacité à protéger et assister les victimes de conflits armés. Cette stratégie comprend entre autres la promotion des principes humanitaires fondamentaux ainsi que l'établissement d'un dialogue sur le terrain visant à sensibiliser les acteurs économiques sur des préoccupations humanitaires spécifiques.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 83 , Issue 844 , December 2001 , pp. 947 - 968
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2001

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References

1 “Business in difficult places: Risky unglobalcomreturns”, The Economist, 20 May 2000.

2 The Global Compact was launched by the UN Secretary-General at the 1999 World Economic Forum in Davos, calling on companies to adhere to nine principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards and the environment. See <http://www.unglobalcompact.org>.

3 Mark Mitchell, TIME Asia, 6 August 2001, vol. 158, No 5.

4 See e.g. Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, 27 March 2001.

5 Juan Forero, New York Times, 26 July 2001.

6 This view is for instance supported by Nobel Laureate in Economics Milton Friedman.

7 Sources: World Investment Report 2001, UNCTAD, Geneva, 2001; and 2000 Development Co-operation Report, OECD/DAC, Paris, 2001. It should be noted that most foreign direct investment in the developing world concentrates on a few recipient countries such as China and India. It is much smaller in war-prone regions, but is nonetheless significant in the oil and mining sectors.

8 Source: World Bank statistics. Note that GDP figures are underestimated in that informal activities often go unrecorded in official macroeconomic data.

9 World Link, September/October 2001. Percy Barnevik argues, however, that the strength of big companies is relative: “Of the list of the 500 largest companies in the US, some one-third will disappear in 10 years, and not just through acquisitions and mergers.”

10 Wild, A., The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600, Harper Collins, London, 1999.Google Scholar

11 Karl, T. L., The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States, University of California Press, London, 1997.Google Scholar

12 Tim Weiner, “CIA in 1950's drew up list of Guatemalan leaders to be assassinated”, New York Times, 28 May 1997.

13 M. Ottaway, “Reluctant missionaries,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2001.

14 UNGA Res. 34/169 of 17 December 1979.

15 Adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 1990.

16 See e.g. P. Utting, “UN-business partnerships: whose agenda counts?”, Transnational Associations, No. 3, 2001.

17 Thakur, R., “Global norms and international humanitarian law: An Asian perspective”, IRRC, No. 841, March 2001, p. 19.Google Scholar

18 <http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/001220_fsdrl_principles.html>

19 The principles concern the sharing of risk assessments relating to factors such as the identification of security risks, the potential for violence, human rights records, conflict analysis, arms transfers, etc.

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21 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 Art. 86.

22 See for instance M. Nyberg, “At risk from complicity with crime”, Financial Times, 27 July 1998.

23 Contacts (pursuant to Art. 36 of Protocol I) with private arms designers and producers, as well as with financial and commercial intermediaries, are also envisaged.

24 Sandoz, Y., “The privatization of security: Framing a conflict prevention and peacebuilding policy agenda”, mimeo,paper submitted to Wilton Park Conference ICRC,Geneva,1999, p. 99.Google Scholar

25 The Movement comprises, in addition to the ICRC, the individual National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as well as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

26 Council of Delegates (Geneva, November 2001), Strategy for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Report by a Working Group, Geneva, 2001, p. 24, and Resolution CD 2001/PR 5.3/1.