Course: International Environmental law and Biodiversity
Questions: Oil and gas exploitation ' 'A paradox of plenty ' ' A Lesson and a challenge for multinational corporations and the indigenous people in a ' 'new ' ' Arctic
Akureyri 26/02/2012
Answer:
Over the past years,there has been a shift by oil and gas companies to Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR).[1]CSR is a self regulatory policy whereof businesses monitor and ensure it actively complies with the spirit of the law,ethics and international rules.In the case of oil companies, most have failed to effectively meet its economic,social and environmental responsibilities.Thus often discrediting the genuineness and reliability of the CSR policy most especially considering the fact that the rule of every game; is ' 'business ' ' as noted by Milton Friedman: ' '...there is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities to increase its profit so long as it stays within the rules of the game... ' '[2]Once such a rule takes over the primodial rules of CSR,then the cliché ' ' a paradox of plenty ' ' justifiably fits to support the positions of other proponents who argue its merely a window dressing.[3]For every business has the capacity to increase or decrease the quality of life by creating profits or negative externalities such as pollution,accidents and oil spills in an oil company stemmed as forms of ineffiency in production.In as much as businesses must obey the law,in the absence of such law,they ought to act ethically to avoid any damages forming the triple bottom line-economic,social and environmental(Corporate Social Responsibility).[4]The efforts of oil companies are commendable towards leveraging the standards of CSR;that notwithstanding as proven in the preceding oil and gas cases under study; such shifts does not denote a tangible change in its
References: Jay .G.Martin,Sustainable Developments:Impacts of Current Trends on Oil amd Gas Development,24 J.Land Resources and Envil.L.257,at 258(2004). Gregory Dess and Alan Eisner,Strategic Management 2006 Mathias Beck and Charles Woolfson,eds.Corporate Social Responbility Failures in the Oil Industry 2(2005). [1] Jay .G.Martin,Sustainable Developments:Impacts of Current Trends on Oil amd Gas Development,24 J.Land Resources and Envil.L.257,at 258(2004). [13] US Congress: Oil Pollution Act 1990 and the Oil Spill Trust Fund [14] Mathias Beck and Charles Woolfson,eds.Corporate Social Responbility Failures in the Oil Industry 2(2005).