Business and Human Rights

Human Rights Responsibilities in Oil and Gas Operations: Applying the UN Guiding Principles

Project Director: Robert McCorquodale
Research Fellow: Jonathan Bonnitcha

In June 2011, the Institute and the law firm Clifford Chance were awarded a grant by the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators to conduct a joint research project on the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in the oil and gas sector. The project is also supported by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. The agreed output of this project is an article to be submitted for publication in the Journal of World Energy Law and Business. The paper is due to be submitted in April 2012.

The project entails two phases of research. The first phase involves clarifying the scope of the Guiding Principles and their relevance to oil and gas companies. The second phase involves surveying and interviewing oil and gas companies about their existing approaches to managing their human rights impacts. Through these two phases of research, the paper will develop recommendations about further steps that oil and gas companies need to take in order to discharge their responsibility to respect human rights consistently with the Guiding Principles.

In parallel to this research project, the Institute, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute and the International Bar Association, organised a conference on the subject of implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The conference was supported by Clifford Chance and the Söderberg Foundations, and held over one and a half days on 15-16 September at the offices of Clifford Chance. The quality of the speakers and of the engagement with the issues by the audience was excellent. A report on the conference is available here.