Shell Violates Human Rights and Pollutes the Environment

British-Dutch company Shell is accused before the PPT of violating labor rights and polluting the environment in Argentina; of affecting the health of local residents in Brazil with chemical and heavy metals deposits; and of repressing, with the help of the police, the opposition of the community and local activists in Ireland.

Royal Dutch Shell is a British-Dutch company devoted to energy as well as chemical production. It was created in 1907 when the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd merged their operations to compete against the then US giant Standard Oil. The company is currently present in 140 countries. In Latin America, it has subsidiaries in in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Brazil, and until mid 2005 it also operated in Uruguay, Paraguay and Colombia.

It has 112,000 employees, its income in 2005 was 380 billion dollars and its revenues were 26.2 billion dollars. This global group of companies carries out oil and gas exploration and production, it generates elecricity, fuels, oils and other oil by-products, chemical products and it sells energy, hydrocarbons and its by-products.

Shell has been in Argentina for over 90 years. There, it has been responsible for the spill of hydrocarbons in the Madgalena coasts in 1999, and the constant pollution to which the residents of Dock Sud (commonly known as Inflamable Town) have been subjected to for decades. Other aspects should also be mentioned such as the company's working conditions, the outsourcing commercialization policies or the setting of prices.

In May of 2006, several NGO filed a claim before the Dutch and the Brazilian National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD guidelines (for multinational corporations) regarding Royal Dutch Shell's operations in Brasil. The case refers to Shell's refusal to comply with a petition of the Brazilian government in January of 2005, requesting the company to put an end to the deposition of chemicals in and under its facilities, a practice that the company has been carrying out for over twenty years. The government also urged Shell to provide assistance to the workers and local residents whose health has been affected by the high concentration of chemicals and heavy metals in their blood. Shell has shown little concern for its own workers and for the local residents, and it fails to implement plans and adopt technologies to mitigate potential risks in its oil deposit. It has also failed to provide relevant information on the impact of its operations on the environment, health and security.

In Ireland, the company has a natural gas reserve (Corrib Field) 80 kilometers off the east coast in county Mayo. This project aims to take gas to the coast to then pump it unrefined 9 kilometers inland, where the gas would be cleaned and depressurized to be sold and exported. The project has met with the opposition of the local community since the details of the project came to light for the first time in 2000. Activists of the community argue that if the refinery is built it will have a negative impact on the local environment and therefore on the community, it will pollute the water and air which are now clean, and it will have a negative effect on health, family economy and the fauna, implying an unacceptable security risk. The residents have reported that they have never been consulted about the project, which is currently operating without the community's consent.

Key issues: Natural Resources and Neocolonialism

Denouncing organizations: CAVE - Colectivo Alternativa Verde, Sindicato dos Trabalhadores no Comércio de Minérios e Derivados de Petróleo no estado de São Paulo – sipetrol (Brasil), Shell to Sea (Ireland).