Human Rights Reports and Analysis
Section Articles
Comments to Finance on its consultation under the Official Development Assistance (ODA) Accountability Act - December 22, 2008
This is the first occasion under which any Department has consulted with groups in relation to the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act. Accordingly, the Halifax Initiative and CCIC have chosen to provide both extensive feedback on the consultation process and to provide some broad principles for Finance Canada to consider in terms of how Canadian policy at the IFIs might be made consistent with the Act. This submission also complements two Briefing Notes that CCIC will submit independently and should be read taking these Briefing Notes into account.
Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) Submission regarding the April 2008 Report of the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights
This submission provides feedback regarding the final report to the first part of the Special Representative's mandate.
Export Credit Agencies and the International Law of Human Rights - January 2008
This paper was prepared to inform the mandate of the Special Representative of the United National Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights. The paper argues that currently, state obligations under international law are not being met in the provision of officially-supported export credit and investment insurance services. The paper provides recommendations for home states regarding export credit agencies and international human rights.
Letter to John Ruggie re HRIA - September 24, 2006
This letter to John Ruggie, UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Business and Human Rights, outlines the principles that individuals involved in Rights & Democracy's Human Rights Impact Assessment for communities feel are essential to any HRIA developed by governments or companies.
The Legal Obligations With Respect to Human Rights and Export Credit Agencies (July 2006)
This Legal Analysis is a revision of an earlier discussion paper prepared for ESCR-Net and ECA-Watch. It provides an overview of Export Credit Agencies, and how ECA-funded activities impact human rights. It explores the international law of state responsibility as applied to ECAs, concluding that ECAs, as organs or agents of the state, must comply with the international obligations of the state. It then explores the legal implications of this conclusion for ECAs.
Policy Brief : "Export Development Canada and Human Rights" - June 2006
In preparation for the 2006 National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and Extractives in Developing Countries, the Halifax Initiative has prepared this policy backgrounder, "Export Development Canada and Human Rights - Risk or Rights?"
"One Step Forward, One Step Back" (May 2006)
Overview and Analysis of the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Sustainability Policy, Performance Standards and Disclosure Policy
Comments on Bank Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples (February 2005)
The Halifax Initiative Coalition sent official comments to the World Bank's Indigenous Peoples Coordinator highlighting the need for the World Bank to strengthen its draft Operational Policy (OP 4.10) on Indigenous Peoples in order to ensure that it sufficiently meets international standards and guarantees on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Risk, Responsibility and Human Rights (May 2004)
Read the Discussion Paper and Final Report for a meeting on human rights and investment, that explores how human rights can be mainstreamed into trade and project finance. The Discussion Paper develops a framework, based on best practices, for ensuring due human rights diligence through all stages of the project cycle, and the Final Report provides an overview of the discussions and conclusions that were reached at the May 2004 multistakeholder meeting of experts.
"Race to the Bottom, Take II" (September 2003)
This report critiques Revision 6 of the OECD Common Approaches on environment and export credits, and documents nine projects (including the Cernavoda2 nuclear power plant and the Three Gorges dam) which have had devastating environmental, social and human rights impacts, and which have all received (or will soon recieve) funding by Export Credit Agencies, including Canada's EDC. The report argues that the Common Approaches did little to mitigate the devastating social, environmental and human rights impacts of ECA-funded projects.
"Damming Evidence - Canada and the World Commission on Dams" (June 2003)
The Report asks why Canada, which has a record of financing large dam projects through EDC and CIDA, chose to give $100,000 to support the World Commission on Dams, but has failed to implement its recommendations. The report gives a brief overview of the WCD recommendations, and compares them with EDC and CIDA's policies with regards to the environment.
Review of "Damming Evidence" (2003)
Read this review in World Rivers Review, the newsletter for International Rivers Network, of "Damming Evidence: Canada and the World Commission on Dams."
"Seven Deadly Secrets: What Export Development Canada does not want you to know" (January 2003)
This report documents seven projects being pursued by Canadian companies abroad that will have negative environmental, social and human rights impacts. It includes a more detailed critique of EDC?s environment and disclosure policies.
Linking Investment and Human Rights (December 2002)
Linking Investment and Human Rights: the case of export credit agencies
This seminar held in London, England, in December 2002, looked at various methodologies for taking human rights into account in investment projects, and determining ways that these can be applied to export credit agencies.
Reckless Lending - Volume II: How Canada's Export Development Corporation Puts People and the Environment and the Environment at Risk (May 2001)
Like the Report Reckless Lending Volume 1, Volume II documents the negative impacts of several projects financed by Canada's Export Development Corporation (EDC). These publications demonstrate clearly the need to ensure that EDC, a public agency, be required by law to uphold public policies and international standards protecting human rights, the environment and the social needs of communities (May 2001).
Reckless Lending - Volume I: How Canada's Export Development Corporation Puts People and the Environment at Risk (March 2000)
Reckless Lending Volume I documents the negative impacts of several projects financed by Canada's Export Development Corporation (EDC). These publications demonstrate clearly the need to ensure that EDC, a public agency, be required by law to uphold public policies and international standards protecting human rights, the environment and the social needs of communities.
Race to the Top: How to make the Export Development Corporation Responsible to People and the Environment Report (November 1999)
Race to the Top: How to make the Export Development Corporation Responsible to People and the Environment Policy Paper of the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation on issues relating to disclosure, the environment, human rights and debt.
