Business and human rights - protect, respect and remedy
Last month, members of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the policy framework identified in April by John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on human rights and transnational corporations. The Council also extended Mr. Ruggie’s mandate for three years.

To access the submission, click here.

EDC Gives Nod to Human Rights Considerations
But the Jury is still out on whether the Crown Corporation has gone far enough.

By Lee Berthiaume

The Export Development Act, which came into force in 1969, established Export Development Canada and continu

Government’s Response to Mining Report Still Underground

By Michelle Collins, Embassy Newspaper

It has been just over a year since a highly anticipated report recommending significant steps to ensure Canadian mining companies operating abroad adhere to socially responsible standards was submitted to the government.

Yet despite indications from Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the G8 leaders’ summit last June that Canada—which has the world’s largest number of extractive companies—was poised to take the lead, nothing more has emerged, and observers and critics say they have no idea what to expect, or when.

At home and abroad, Canadian companies should have the same human-rights and environmental standards



Our mining and oil and gas interests shouldn't act like a foreign fox in an overseas hen house

ED BROADBENT AND ALEX NEVE

Special to Globe and Mail Update

February 29, 2008 at 12:21 AM EST

On days one and two of the February 2008 conference on the "Changing Face of Global Development Finance", we heard the following presentations:

Corruption back on the Bank’s agenda?
Evidence of serious fraud and corruption has emerged in five Bank-funded health projects in Orissa, India. The $570 million for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS control was implemented from 1997 to 2003. The charges emerged from a Detailed Implementation Review (DIR) of projects in India begun in 2006, a process itself triggered by evidence of corrupt practices by two pharmaceutical companies involved in another Bank health scheme. The Indian government has pledged to take “exemplary punishment” of the parties involved.
 

This paper examines international human rights law and officially-supported export credit agencies.

CANADA: Gov't Urged to Rein in Mining Sector
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40353

by Am Johal, IPS News
December 7th, 2007

Canadian mining companies continue to come under scrutiny from civil society organisations for international human rights violations and environmental damage that critics say the Canadian government has done little to check.

Canada is a leader in the global mining industry, with almost 60 percent of the world's listed exploration and mining companies. The government supports some foreign mining activity through Export Development Canada, a federal agency.