Human rights

Respect for human rights is one of our CR Guiding Principles, and we seek to apply the principles contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) within our sphere of influence and activities. This includes the rights of employees and those who are affected by our activities.

Meeting our responsibility to respect human rights is critical to the development and maintenance of effective relationships with our workers and the communities in which we operate.

We are committed to a culture that supports internationally recognised human rights and seeks to ensure non-complicity in human rights abuses, and apply a 'rights aware approach' in identifying and assessing any human rights at issue in our activities, and defining actions to be taken to address them.

Managing Human Rights Risks

Cairn has taken a proactive position with regard to human rights risk management for many years. Our human rights compliance roadmap and Human Rights Handbook contain guidance for managers on assessing human rights issues, as part of the Group CRMS, which was revamped in 2007 to ensure that human rights was one of the CR risks considered at key stages of every project. The Human Rights Handbook has since been updated and will be rolled out and training provided in 2010.

Over the last year, we have issued a new Code of Business Ethics and amended our Group CR Guiding Principles and CR Policy to reflect the findings of a report we commissioned to assess our approach to human rights. To better align our policies and procedures with best practice, we have also introduced a coherent and easy-to-use management system, and updated our policies and procedures to reflect recent developments such as the 2008 report to the Human Rights Council by Professor John Ruggie.

The Group CR Committee has been fully involved in the review and approval of CR Policies, Guiding Principles and the Human Rights Handbook.

Respect For Our Employees

We believe that by promoting a work environment in which employees are treated with dignity and respect, we help to create a loyal, motivated and effective workforce. This includes providing fair and just rewards for their contributions and supporting opportunities for professional development.

We have robust policies in place covering the areas of recruitment, grievance, harassment and equal opportunities which aim to give fair treatment to all current and potential employees.

And although we do not have any employees who are unionised or any collective agreements in place throughout our business, we do consult our workforce on organisational issues on a regular basis through a variety of other means.

Respect For Communities

A fundamental respect for human rights is critical to the maintenance of the good working relationships we have with the local communities with which we interact.

From time to time, our operations require land to be acquired, both temporarily, for exploratory and appraisal work or road access, or on a more permanent basis for well sites, processing facilities, pipelines and roads.

Since 2006, we have utilised the Group Framework Resettlement Action Plan (RAP), which sets out the principles to be followed in acquiring land for any of our operations. It also provides guidelines on compensation covering loss of land use, physical displacement, impacts to assets such as built structures and crops and impacts to livelihoods. The RAP is subject to constant review and provides the basis for more detailed project-specific RAPs in particular regions such as Bangladesh and India.

We aim to be open and transparent with local communities at all times. To ensure communities are aware of the potential impacts of proposed operations, PCDPs are published prior to commencing any new activities. This approach allows public consultation to inform RAPs and ensure that processes for grievances and compensation are well understood by affected stakeholders.

This process has been critical to the success of projects such as the Rajasthan export pipeline which affects somewhere in the region of 25,000 land owners. The PCDP and RAP have been critical to maintaining good performance, on schedule, for this large project.