Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 2.7: International Processes and Complaints Mechanisms
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through government-backed loans, guarantees and insurance
to corporations. It is a long-standing complaint that ECAs
rarely consider social and environmental standards in their
decision making processes. Although this is changing thanks
to societal pressure the situation is different depending on
the government involved. The International Federation for
Human Rights’ “Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
Abuses” covers complaints mechanisms to some of the major
ECAs, namely Export Development Canada (EDC), the USA’s
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the
UK’s Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD). 49
There are mechanisms in the private sector, such as the
Principles for Responsible Investment, which is a code of the
conduct for socially responsibly investors. Of more potential
use for activists are the Equator Principles. These are a set of
principles established in 2003 by a number of major banks,
who have become known as the Equator Banks. They are essentially
a set of 10 voluntary environmental and social standards
covering major projects, on issues such as consultation,
grievance mechanisms and transparency. The first version of
the Principles only applied to projects exceeding US$50 million,
and concerned only a dozen international banks. The
new version of the Guidelines are based on the safeguards
developed by the World Bank’s IFC. From January 2012,
the Equator Principles refer to the revised IFC Performance
Standards adopted in 2011, and therefore to FPIC. The new
Principles now apply to investment in all projects exceeding
$10 million dollars, funded by 74 banks in 30 countries. 50 A
third version of the Principles, which explicitly deal with the
issue of FPIC in response to updates from the IFC, are being
publicly reviewed at the time of writing. 51
The problem with the Principles is that, unlike the IFC,
they have no independent review or recourse mechanism, and
they can be a little vague and limited in their application as
well. Still, activists should ensure that any breach of the principles
is reported to the financier in question, and behave—to all
intents and purposes—as if there is a complaints mechanism.
Direct complaints to private banks who are financing projects
should also be possible. The larger ones will have their