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The corporations have asked us to trust them. But even the paragon of ³corporate social responsibility´ is saying
one thing and doing quite another.

Tomorrow, when the cleaners move into the Sandton Centre in Johannesburg, the United Nations will claim that
something has been rescued from the wreckage of the earth summit. Governments may not have delivered, but
big business has. The world¶s biggest corporations, with the UN¶s blessing, have negotiated a series of
³partnership agreements´ ² voluntary commitments obliging those companies to respect the environment and
defend human rights ² which will be recorded as official outcomes of the summit. These, they claim, will
show that international law is not required to force corporations to respect human rights and the environment.
Governments appear to agree, which may be one reason why they have seemed so relaxed about the survival of
the planet: why legislate if the world can be saved by promises?

But just as the chief executives congratulate each other, a new report suggests that the partnership agreements
are worthless. The company most clearly associated with ³corporate social responsibility´, which has launched
one of the new partnerships and sponsored some of the key events at the summit, appears to be saying one thing
and doing just the opposite.

In a survey conducted by the Financial Times, BP was named as the firm which commands the most public
respect for its environmental record. The energy company claims to run its operations according to a set of strict
³business policies´, which have enabled it to become ³a power for good in the world´. BP, the policies state,
will ³respect the rule of law´, defend ³basic human rights and fundamental freedoms´, ³be held accountable for
our actions´ and ³will not choose business partners to do things on our behalf that contravene these
commitments´. As an example of good practice, the company cites, in its statement on environmental and social
reporting, the ³major stakeholder consultation exercises´ carried out in preparation for the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline project.

Last week, an international coalition of environmental and human rights groups published the results of their
factfinding missions along the route of this pipeline. Their report suggests that, far from being a model of good
practice, BP¶s showcase project breaks both the commitments BP has published and the promises business
leaders have made in Johannesburg. Their findings imply that those who imagine we can rely on trust to save
the world are deceiving themselves.

The pipeline, whose construction is due to begin in December, runs from the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. It will carry one million barrels of crude oil a day. One of most
important energy projects on earth, it will reinforce Turkey¶s position as a strategic ally of the west. The 1000
kilometres of pipeline running through Turkey will be built by the Turkish company Botas, on behalf of a
consortium of oil firms led by BP.

Botas, which is responsible for the ³major stakeholder consultation exercises´ of which BP has boasted, claims
to have distributed information ³to all stakeholders´ in the project, and to have consulted most of the villages
along the route of the pipeline and nearly everyone else who might be affected by its construction. These
assertions, the factfinding mission to Turkey suggests, are untrue.

The mission visited eight of the villages Botas claims to have consulted. Four of them, it discovered, had not
been contacted at all. In the mission¶s report there is a photograph of the village of Haçibayram, which Botas
says it ³consulted by telephone´. The houses are little more than piles of rubble: the entire village was deserted
years ago. It has no telephones.

The consultations which did take place appear to have been designed to manufacture consent. The people Botas
visited were asked what they felt the benefits of the pipeline might be, but were not questioned about the
potential costs. Botas brought in ³university professors´, who told the villagers, incorrectly, that there were no
safety or environmental risks associated with the pipeline. The questionnaire noted that the pipeline is a Turkish
government project ³of high economic and strategic importance´ to the country. The people who live along the
route (some of whom are Kurds) are likely to have interpreted this as a coded warning that they speak out at
their peril. Even the factfinding mission was stopped and questioned by police.

Though the construction of the pipeline will destroy homes, fields and roads and damage many people¶s
livelihoods, only a minority of those it affects are likely to receive compensation. Most of the land along the
route is either not officially registered, or is held in the name of dead people. BP¶s partner has told the villagers
that it will compensate only those whose names are on the official register. No compensation at all has been
offered to the fishing communities who will be affected by the construction of the tanker port at the end of the
line.

Violations of this kind have been common practice in the oil industry for years, but what is new and astonishing
about BP¶s project is the contract struck between the oil companies and the government of Turkey, a copy of
which the factfinding mission has obtained. The contract suggests that, far from being a model project led by an
³accountable´ corporation, the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline sets new standards for corporate impunity and
domination. The pipeline¶s ³host government agreement´ effectively grants the corporations executive power
over the government.

The contract overrides all Turkish laws except the constitution. It insulates the oil companies from any change
in either Turkish law or international law: if, for example, new taxes or new environmental or health and safety
rules are introduced, the agreement takes priority. In effect, it forces Turkey to flout international law, in order
to protect the consortium. BP appears to be legally exempt from paying compensation to anyone affected by oil
spills or other impacts of the pipeline project. Turkey has promised that its security forces will defend the
consortium from ³civil disturbances´, but neither the government nor the companies are obliged by the
agreement to respect human rights. BP may terminate the contract at any time. Turkey may not.

What BP and its partners have done, in other words, is to negotiate a contract which has the same effect as the
Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the charter for corporate rights drawn up in secret by governments and
corporations five years ago, but dropped when it caused an international outcry. The company which has
promoted itself in Johannesburg as the exemplar of corporate responsibility, which has promised to respect the
rule of law and ³be held accountable´ for its actions, has exempted itself from effective democratic control.

If BP ² by common consent the most environmentally and socially responsible of all big companies ² is
prepared to play by these rules, it is hard to see why we should believe any of the promises made by big
business in Johannesburg. Corporations will take what they can: when there is a conflict between profitability
and the environment or human rights, the profits come first. Voluntary agreements, this case suggests, simply
do not work. Big business will protect human rights and the environment only if it is forced to do so.