Extractives projects, such as mines and oil fields, are one of the main sources of human rights abuses in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with hazardous working conditions, labour rights abuses, effects on the health of local communities, and severe environmental impacts.

In June 2021, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre released Digging in the Shadows, an analysis of the human rights policies and performance of the largest extractives projects in Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. The report found serious allegations around violence and killings, labour rights violations, environmental destruction, displacement, and poisoning from toxic emissions.

To learn more, visit our page on Western investment in rights-violating projects.

Investor Outreach

In late November 2021, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reached out to Western investors and shareholders with current investments in projects with particularly serious human rights allegations. We also narrowed the list to exclude intermediary companies , and did not contact investors who exclusively invested in projects where we did not find significant human rights allegations.

As part of this project, we reached out to:

• Banca IMI (now incorporated into Intesa Sanpaolo)
• Banca Comercială Română (BCR)
• Black Sea Trade and Development Bank
• Chevron
• Citigroup
• Crédit Agricole
• Deutsche Bank
• Eni
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• ExxonMobil
• HSBC
• ING
• JPMorgan Chase
• Raiffeisen Bank
• Shell
• Société Générale
• Swedish Export Credit Corporation
• Total
• Unicredit
• Vitol

Here, you can find the letters we sent each of these investors outlining human rights allegations related to the projects they fund. We further engaged with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development via video conferencing. As part of this story, you can view each investor's response.