Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

328 john brayCollaborative Initiatives to Promote Best PracticeAs the Chad, Myanmar, Sudan, and case studies show, it is difficult forinternational companies to justify their presence in countries with poorgovernance records unless they can demonstrate that they are a positiveforce for change. However, this raises questions about the extentto which companies have a mandate to influence host governments andsocieties beyond their immediate commercial responsibilities. Recentexperience suggests that companies can play a valuable role in buildingup local technical and commercial capacity (see Nelson 2000).However, their role is most likely to be accepted if they work in partnershipwith other actors. There are now a number of examples of suchcollaboration.The U.S.-U.K. Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.One of the most important facets of governments is that they have conveningpower. The U.S.-U.K. voluntary principles provide an example.The U.S. State Department and U.K. Foreign and CommonwealthOffice together convened a series of meetings involving leading humanrights nongovernmental organizations and companies in the extractiveindustries. 29 The participants agreed on a set of voluntary principlescovering risk assessments and guidelines for company relationships withboth government and private security forces. Among other undertakings,companies will inform the authorities of any “credible allegationsof human rights abuses by public security” and use their influence toprevent any recurrences.The two governments played a particularly important role in conveningthe meetings. Without their authority, it is questionable whetherthey would have taken place so quickly or so successfully. Some nongovernmentalorganizations have questioned the value of principlesthat are voluntary rather than statutory. However, they set an importantbenchmark, and it would have been difficult to secure agreementso quickly if they had not been voluntary.The Dutch and Norwegian governments are participating in followupdiscussions, and Exxon has signed up to the principles. Now the mostimportant challenge is to put the principles in practice and to secure thecooperation of host governments. The participants are focusing onColombia, Indonesia, and Nigeria as test cases.International Alert: Business Diversification in Azerbaijan. In 1999International Alert, a London-based not-for-profit organization, beganan initiative to engage multinational companies investing in Azerbaijanin a multiple-stakeholder dialogue (Killick n.d.). Azerbaijan is expectedto receive some $10 billion of investment over the next few years,