Energy Security:, Security for Whom?

Abstract

In military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, large-scale natural gas projects have directly and indirectly led to violations of basic human rights through the complicity of multinational corporate actors. These abuses are ongoing and there is an unreasonably high risk they will increase as more gas projects are developed. This paper assesses the past, present, and future human rights impacts of large-scale natural gas extraction in Burma, and the implications these impacts have in terms of corporate accountability. The paper provides background information regarding Burma's government, economic policy, and the energy sector and considers past and present human rights abuses connected to the Yadana natural gas project, developed by a consortium including Chevron, Total, PTTEP, and MOGE. The authors argue that the companies are complicit in ongoing human rights abuses in connection to their investment. The paper then describes the threat of future human rights abuses in connection to the country's largest offshore gas deposits, concluding that there is a high risk that current human rights abuses in the proposed project areas will be exacerbated by the new gas production, and that there will likely be abuses directly linked to the Shwe pipeline project. Finally, the authors assess the interests and actors involved in the Southeast Asia regional energy security dynamic as it relates to Burma's fast growing oil and gas sector, human rights, and corporate accountability. They argue that the energy security strategies of China, Thailand, and India-and by association, the national oil corporations under those governments -relying on Burmese resources have paid dangerously inadequate attention to the protection of human rights.