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	Overview of the Problems
	Highlight: Russia's Sakhalin II
	Highlight: The BTC Pipeline

Human Rights

Did You Know?

Social hardship and human rights abuses are sometimes portrayed as the unavoidable price a society must pay for economic advancement. Unfortunately, after the fact, it has been shown that many ECA-backed development projects such as dams, and non-development projects such as arms deals, not only do not bring about economic advancement but actually damage the economies of the host countries, as well as the safety and human rights of the communities directly affected by the projects. Among the ECA-backed projects that have brought the most criticism from human rights watchdog groups are the selling of tanks and other arms to the Suharto government and the construction of the scandal-plagued BTC pipeline, both backed by the UK's ECGD, and also the Ilisu dam (still seeking funding after the ECGD severed connections). Possibly the most infamous ECA project in the world in terms of human rights violations is the Three Gorges dam, backed by six ECAs (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, France and Brazil) with a total of over USD $1.5B in financing, and approaching almost two million people displaced.

"If we only had one free newspaper in China, the Three Gorges Project would not go ahead."

- noted dissident journalist Dai Qing of China. In 1989, when she published Yangtze, Yangtze!, a book protesting the Three Gorges project's impacts, the Chinese government banned the book and imprisoned her for ten months.

Three Gorges
Photo Credit: Friends of the Earth International

* Important Background Documents on Human Rights
* News Items 2004-2005
* News Items 2002-2003

Important Background Documents:

Export Credit Agencies and Human Rights [PPT] June 22, 2005 : ECA Watch presented arguments for the inclusion of human rights standards in the evaluation of projects for ECA support to a European Council Working Group on Export Credit.

Linking Investment and Human Rights: the case of export credit agencies [PDF] December 2002 by ECA Watch campaign participants, reporting from an NGO strategy session held in London, December 6-7, 2002, organized by the Halifax Initiative (Canada), FERN (Belgium), Cornerhouse (UK), All Eyes on SACE/ CRBM (Italy) and The Kurdish Human Rights Project (UK). This report gives an overview of human rights impacts of export credit-financed projects, ECAs and human rights impact assessments, and mechanisms for linking ECA investments more explicitly to human rights.

Open Letter : FIDH urges G8 countries to ensure the integration of human rights into export credit agencies guidelines July 17, 2001

Human Rights Dammed Off at Three Gorges: An investigation of resettlement and human rights problems in the Three Gorges dam project [PDF] January 2003 by IRN, WEED, Berne Declaration, Halifax Initiative, Urgewald

Amnesty International - UK Business and Human Rights Programme - including information on the BTC Pipeline.

Amnesty International - US Business and Human Rights Program - including a section on Environmental Justice, highlighting projects in Indonesia, the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline, and Ecuador.

News 2004-2005:

BTC Pipeline in New Human Rights Storm March 27, 2005

News 2002-2003:

The ECGD and the Human Rights Act 2002 By Kerim Yildiz, Kurdish Human Rights Project, and Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner House - Paper for UK Seminar on Export Credit Agency Reform - "Beyond Business Principles" House of Commons, May 23, 2002

For more information, contact the ECA Watch Facilitator.

ECA Watch Campaign Member Links:

Halifax Initiative, Fraser Reilly-King — www.halifaxinitiative.org

The Cornerhouse, Nick Hildyard - www.thecornerhouse.org.uk

Urgewald / Kampagne für den Regenwald, Regine Richter - www.urgewald.de