WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- An African oil pipeline threatens human rights and prevents the people of Chad and Cameroon from obtaining justice in local courts, a human rights group said.
"The $4.2 billion Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline risks freezing human rights protection for decades to come for the thousands of people who live in its path," Amnesty International said.
"The investment agreements governing the project risk seriously undermining the ability and willingness of Chad and Cameroon to protect their citizens' human rights, making the oil companies de facto unaccountable in the pipeline zone," Amnesty International British legal adviser Andrea Shemberg said.
In a 54-page report, released Thursday, titled "Contracting out of Human Rights: The Chad-Cameroon pipeline project," Amnesty urges the governments of Chad and Cameroon and the ExxonMobil-led consortium to renegotiate oil pipeline project, which is the largest foreign investment project in Africa.
"This project must not continue without changes that guarantee that human rights will be upheld," Shemberg added. "Human rights are not negotiable items that companies and governments are permitted to eliminate by contract."
Since July 2003, the ExxonMobil-led consortium has been extracting oil from the Doba oil fields in southern Chad and transporting it by pipeline to Cameroon's ports for shipment to Western markets.
The World Bank said the project would bring development to Chad and Cameroon's people but the human rights group said the oil pipeline contracts must be revised to safeguard human rights and prevent widespread corruption.
One of the world's fastest growing oil-producing regions, West Africa's production is estimated to provide 25 percent of U.S. oil imports alone by 2015.
