How Neglected Nigerian oil producing community got tap water first time in decades

How Neglected Nigerian oil-producing community got tap water first time in decades: Remarkable Mary made a record achievement in her humanitarian work – she built a borehole water project for a neglected oil-producing community.

Blogger's Comment.

“The responsibility to respect human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever they operate. It exists independently of States’ abilities and/or willingness to fulfill their own human rights obligations and does not diminish those obligations. And it exists over and above compliance with national laws and regulations protecting human rights.” - Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, John Ruggie. March 21, 2011.

Interpretation

The obligation of an Oil Company doing business in a particular community to reach out to the people in that community and 'meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs' is independent of the ability or inability of the government and institutions in the host country to meet the human rights and socio-economic expectations of the people in the affected community. That you are paying taxes and royalties as at when due to the host nation is irrelevant. You have an independent obligation to do what is right for the host community - an independent obligation that operates outside of the realm of the agreements that you signed with the host nation. It is an international benchmark. 

“Human beings are at the center of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.” Principle 1, UN RIO Declaration of 1992. 

In the words of Professor Luke Danielson, a prominent Attorney in the emerging world of sustainable development of natural resources, "Truly successful projects must be successful for investors, local communities, and host national economies. Increasingly, it appears that there is little opportunity for success in one of these dimensions without success in all of them. A project that has terrible results for investors is not going to benefit anyone else very much. A project that burdens the government of a poor country with all kinds of costs of social dislocation and environmental problems while providing little or no revenue to deal with them is likely to have a long list of other problems. The idea that the company is going to be highly successful at meeting its own expectations without meeting the expectations of other key players is increasingly difficult to accept.” Culled from “Sustainable Development in Natural Resource Industries: New Perspectives, New Rules, and New Opportunities.”