Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) – Nigerian NGO Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the Nigerian subsidiaries of global soft drink maker Coca-Cola Ltd and the Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights over “serious breaches of corporate responsibility to respect the right to health of Nigerians and the failure to provide effective remedies to victims”.
SERAP said in a statement that ”this failure of due diligence has implications for the enjoyment of the economic and social rights guaranteed under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
The organisation’s petition followed last week’s disclosure by the Nigerian Consumer Protection Council (CPC) of cases of harmful drinks including two half-empty cans of Sprite, a product manufactured by the NBC under the licence and authority of Coca-Cola Limited, and rusty bottle crown corks, rusty cans and foreign particles in products.
The CPC also said these companies have failed to put in place a Shelf Life Policy for their products in the country to facilitate the removal of expired products from the market.
“Both Coca-Cola and NBC have failed and or neglected to subject their manufacturing process to inspection by appropriate authorities, contrary to national laws and international standards, in particular, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework. The Guiding Principles were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2011.
“Coca-Cola and NBC are required to ensure that their activities do not directly or indirectly cause human rights abuses, and to provide effective remedies to victims in cases of abuses of human rights. They must seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts,” SERAP said.
It said the human rights abuses by Coca-Cola and NBC illustrate the ”lack of explicit human rights policies” by several companies operating in Nigeria and which have continued to contribute to the violations and abuses of the economic and social rights of millions of Nigerians.
SERAP therefore requested the Committee “being the principal body established to monitor compliance with the Covenant, to act urgently not only to ensure that corporate bodies like Coca-Cola and NBC are not directly or indirectly abusing the economic and social rights of Nigerians under the Covenant and the Guiding Principles, but also to protect the sanctity, credibility, efficacy, and authority of the Covenant and the Guiding Principles and the Committee’s role in ensuring that corporate practices do not directly or indirectly lead to abuses of human rights.”
