11.2.2.2 Weak governance zones: CSR and Ruggie Report

There is a difference between properly regulated countries and so-called 'weak governance zones' (OECD, 2006).1 In the latter case, an enterprise enters the field of corporate responsibility. A report by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, Professor John Ruggie, provides a solid basis for determining what can reasonably be expected of companies in respect of environmental and social responsibilities (Ruggie, 2008; see chapter 7 of this book, in particular section 7.5). It distinguishes between a government's duty to protect its citizens against human rights violations and the companies' duty to respect the human rights within their sphere of influence. Applying this framework to the issue of freshwater means that it is first of all a government's duty to provide its people with access to freshwater and to manage its open and underground waters. Protection against overconsumption by industry or pollution of water resources is part of that duty. Many countries have legislation in place dealing with this duty. Companies, on the other hand, have the duty to respect human rights. Respecting also entails corporate due diligence to prevent activities with an adverse human rights impact (Ruggie, 2008, p. 17). In practice, this means that a company's freshwater consumption pattern that deprives people of access to freshwater would lead to a human rights' violation, which could be grounds for corporate liability. As mentioned before, it can be difficult to attribute the deprivation of access to water to one cause. However, in the case of a company polluting freshwater sources, human rights violations would probably be easier to demonstrate, e.g. right to life, access to water and food. A well published case concerned the Shell operations in the Ogoni Delta in Nigeria which were claimed to have polluted freshwater sources and damaged food supply (Lambooy and Rancourt, 2008 and Wiwa v. Shell). See the case study in chapter 9. Nigeria could be qualified as a weak governance zone at the time. Two other cases in which companies were accused of mismanaging water resources are set out below, concerning, respectively, a water stressed region in India and a weak governance zone in the Ivory Coast.