UN Experts Claim Saudi Aramco May Be Violating Human Rights With Oil Production

By Irina Slav - Aug 28, 2023

According to UN human rights experts, Saudi Aramco is threatening human rights by expanding its oil production due to “the adverse impacts on human rights caused by activities such as the exploitation of fossil fuels which contribute to climate change.”

The concern was expressed in a letter authored by a group of unnamed UN human rights experts and sent to the Saudi state energy giant.

Reuters noted in a report that the letter did not spell out in detail what the adverse impacts of oil production on human rights was, but the Financial Times said that Aramco was the world’s biggest corporate CO2 emitter.

The latter statement is contradicted by this rating of the world’s biggest emitters, which was compiled by the Carbon Disclosure Project. According to the CDP, the biggest emitter in the world is China Coal, which accounts for 14.3% of total global emissions.

In that rating, Saudi Aramco is second, with 4.5% of global emissions.

What’s more interesting in the FT report, however, is the fact that the UN experts had also contacted the banks that Aramco works with, including Citi and BNP Paribas, to warn them that their Saudi clients may be violating human rights laws.

There was a hint of a threat in the letter to the banks, as it said that if the lenders were aware of Aramco violating human rights and failed to act on this awareness, “it can be viewed as enabling the situation”, the FT reported.

“Businesses should avoid infringing on human rights by taking proactive steps to identify, prevent, mitigate and address adverse impacts with which they are involved, including impacts resulting from climate change,” the UN officials said.

Energy Intelligence’ OPEC correspondent Amena Bakr noted that the authors of the letter to Aramco and its banks had given no reason why they had only targeted the Saudi energy giant.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com