To what extent does a corporate-state security consensus undermine human rights? Oil extraction in Arauca: Colombia, the United States and Occidental Petroleum Annabel Short September 2004 Dissertation submitted for MSc in Development Studies Birkbeck College, University of London Annabel Short Development Studies MSc Dissertation Sept 2004 Birkbeck College Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................... 3 The case study ................................................................................................ 4 Structure and research method ....................................................................... 5 Chapter 2: Theoretical framework .................................................................. 7 A corporate-state security consensus ............................................................. 7 The importance of oil ....................................................................................... 8 Inter-state dynamics: the preservation of inequality ........................................ 8 A particularist approach to security .................. 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A comparison with human security ................................................................ 11 Protection ................................................................................................... 12 Empowerment ............................................................................................ 12 Chapter 3: The national context – Colombia ................................................ 14 Struggles over territorial control and the consolidation of the elite ................ 14 Illegal armed actors ....................................................................................... 15 Oil and conflict in Arauca ............................................................................... 17 The government’s response: A ‘Democratic Security Policy’ ......................... 18 The Rehabilitation and Consolidation Zone in Arauca ................................ 19 Chapter 4: The international context – the United States and Occidental Petroleum ........................................................................................................ 22 The United States .......................................................................................... 22 United States military assistance for the protection of the Caño Limón- Coveñas pipeline ........................................................................................ 22 United States foreign aid human rights certification ................................... 23 Occidental Petroleum .................................................................................... 24 Levels of corporate involvement in human rights violations........................ 24 The Santo Domingo bombing ..................................................................... 26 The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights ........................... 27 Chapter 5: Conclusion ................................................................................... 30 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 33 Interviews ...................................................................................................... 43 Appendices ..................................................................................................... 44 Appendix 1: Map of Colombia ....................................................................... 44 Appendix 2: Location of the three Rehabilitation and Consolidation Zones ... 45 2 Annabel Short Development Studies MSc Dissertation Sept 2004 Birkbeck College ‘Just as the Enlightenment represented a sustained effort to identify universal rights, there is a need, more than three centuries later, to revisit how both capitalism and the nation-state have advanced, and impeded, the realisation of rights, and to envision new ways to reconcile the common aspirations of humankind with structures of authority that can implement them.’ (Ishay et al, 1997: 397) Chapter 1: Introduction Globalisation has been accompanied by a widening awareness of and commitment to universal human rights. However the central argument of this essay is that the current form of neo-liberal economic globalisation favours a narrow consensus between state and corporate security interests that inhibits the realisation of rights. Modern society can be described as consisting of three major components – state, capital, and the ‘people’, or civil society (Galtung, 1994). The essay will argue that the interests of state and capital, while originally conceived to protect and further the interests of individuals, are not only moving away from people’s interests, but can work together to undermine them. In the global political arena, increased threats to the power of dominant states (in particular the United States) have encouraged a return to a narrow focus on state-security per se, despite the emergence of broadened notions of ‘human security’ and of wider security threats within development and international relations theory. States are willing to prioritise their own national security interests over and above the interests of individuals who live both within their own territories, and within other states. Meanwhile the economic arena is characterised by a narrow focus on the profit-motive per se. Economic actors, including national and multinational corporations, operate within a globalised marketplace in which generating profit is the end-goal in itself, not the means to achieve broader goals of economic and human development, and in which ‘costs’ tend to be defined purely in financial, not social or environmental, terms. These two sets of narrow (and powerful) political and economic interests converge into what shall be described here as a ‘corporate-state security consensus’. While on the one hand economic globalisation can be seen to obliterate national boundaries and therefore be antithetical to national security interests (Cobb et al, 1989), on the other, national security is now intricately linked with economic security (Klare, 2001; Staples, 2004), and the direction and impacts of the global economy are determined to a large 3 Annabel Short Development Studies MSc Dissertation Sept 2004 Birkbeck College extent by the foreign policy of dominant states. This convergence of political and economic security interests is epitomised in the case of oil. Oil’s geographical immutability and its central importance to the survival of industrialised societies means that the protection of supplies is a primary concern to states and plays a pivotal role in their relationship with one another. There is an urgent need – in particular now that security discourse has re-entered centre-stage in global politics – to review the impact of the political and economic security interests described above on the security and wellbeing of individuals. The essay will argue that the corporate-state security consensus undermines human rights by weakening two conditions that are essential for their realisation – protection and empowerment. The protection of human rights rests on the fact that they are meaningless without their corresponding duties. Yet the corporate-state security consensus uses the disjuncture between the fragmented political arena of nation-states (with national laws and enforcement mechanisms), and an integrated, global economy, to break down lines of accountability and therefore the clarification of duties for the protection of human rights. In contrast to the ‘top-down’ process of protection, empowerment can be seen as the ‘bottom-up’ pre-requisite for the realisation of rights. It is through empowerment – ‘people's ability to act on their own behalf, and on behalf of others’ (UN Commission on Human Security, 2003: 11) – that people are able to demand respect for their human rights. This essay will argue that the narrow, particularist approach to security applied by the corporate-state security consensus dis- empowers individuals by restricting political space. It has a bottle-neck effect on civil society, narrowing the policy options available to individuals and to organisations and thus reducing their ability to secure their own and others’ rights. The case study The essay uses the case of oil extraction in Arauca department, north-east Colombia (see map, Appendix 1, pg 44) to examine the impacts of the corporate-state security consensus on individuals. Arauca is placed directly at an intersection of concentrated interests representing the three constituents of global society – nation states (Colombia and the United States), capital (the focus here is on multinational corporations, in this case Occidental Petroleum) and ‘people’ (Araucan civil society). On a national level, the Colombian government has used Arauca as a testing ground for its militarised 4 Annabel Short Development Studies MSc Dissertation Sept 2004 Birkbeck College ‘democratic security’ policy to combat insurgent groups. At the international level, the United States is providing military assistance to the Colombian government for the dual purpose of protecting its own national economic interests in the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline, and assisting the Colombian government’s counter-insurgency efforts. And the interests of Occidental Petroleum in protecting its own investment and assets and expanding exploration in the region are converging with