12 August 2014

Emilio Álvarez Icaza of the OAS stressed the transforming role of the industry at ARPEL Workshop "Business and Human Rights"

  • "We have to understand democracy as a regime of rights for all, where companies need to be provided security in their investments but also to assume a capacity of social leadership and change of a reality that needs to be transformed in the dialogue with government, parliament and judiciary bodies," Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) Emilio Álvarez Icaza stated during the speech he delivered in the framework of the Workshop "Business and Human Rights" organized by the Regional Association of Oil, Gas and Biofuels Sector Companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARPEL) through its Social Responsibility Committee.

    Álvarez Icaza said that the issue of human rights has evolved in such a way that "it is no longer a legal conception only and a topic just for governments".

    He added that times when talking about human rights had a negative connotation are gone, and that the current reality in Latin America is very different. "We are currently undergoing a process of democratic consolidation, and the concept of human rights has become increasingly associated with issues of democratic governance, political stability, and forms of relationship among people".

    Álvarez Icaza stressed that when one speaks of human rights, reference is made not only to the conditions of life in terms of basic rights, education, health, and labor, but also to the forms of relationship among people, such as non-discrimination and codes of respect.

    As regards industry, the representative of the IACHR maintained that human rights have two dimensions toward companies: the first dimension is to the inside of the company, in terms of how to generate codes of inclusion that help to treat people who are part of the company with dignity. For example, models of inclusion of people with disabilities, of environmental responsibility, programs with women. The other dimension refers to actions outside of the company.

    "When a company assumes the vision of human rights, it is helping not only to generate a more sustainable world but a more credible and more respected company. If companies move in this field, they will increasingly become more trusted," he said.

    Regarding his participation in the Workshop "Business and Human Rights," Alvarez Icaza said "I believe these dialogues are very necessary and very urgent. I think that it is very important that our dialogue be increasingly  better so that  large companies working in the energy, hydrocarbon and biofuels fields assume a role not only of social responsibility but also of transformation of the reality for the better."

    "Dialogue is necessary so that this is not a lose-lose but a win-win logic. We cannot accompany a logic where some win and others lose. In this kind of activity, work is progressing in this direction," Álvarez Icaza concluded.

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