[Sir Geoffrey Chandler provided this comment to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre on Yahoo!’s response to various articles expressing concern over the fact that the company provided details to the Chinese Government that helped lead to the imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao.

Yahoo!’s response provided to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre was: “Just like any other global company, Yahoo! must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based.”

That response and articles expressing concern about the company’s conduct in this case may be found here:

]

Sir Geoffrey Chandler comment on Yahoo!’s response regarding its provision of details to Chinese Government that helped lead to journalist's imprisonment

Sir Geoffrey Chandler, Founder Chair of Amnesty International UK Business Group 1991-2001, former Director General of UK National Economic Development Office, former Director of Shell International

16 September 2005

“I am appalled by Yahoo!’s response, if indeed it merits that description. Its ‘country sites’, the company says, ‘must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based’. In many countries today laws are not enforced or may contravene accepted international standards; regulation of employment conditions does not exist; bribery, corruption, exploitative child labour and even forced labour may be the established custom; oppression and human rights violations may be the context. Must we therefore expect Yahoo!, apparently lacking principles itself, to follow any practices, however much they may offend against wider considerations of human rights or international standards?

Thank heavens, Yahoo! practice is not ‘just like any other global company’. A growing number of major transnational companies today explicitly acknowledge their global responsibility for the labour conditions in their operations and for their impact on the environment and on human rights wherever they operate, basing their practice on internationally recognised principles, not variable local custom. Many of these companies had to learn the hard way, through reputational disaster. One can only hope that Yahoo! will prove to have a similar capacity to learn.”

Sir Geoffrey Chandler