Questions about the Death of Saro-Wiwa - Essay Example

Lawrence and James (2008) first provide a background of Shell activities in the world then narrow it to Nigeria and Ogoniland specifically. The authors further give a third-person account of events leading to the death of Saro-Wiwa.

There has been an accusation that multinational corporations perpetuate human rights abuses in third-world countries. Lawrence and James (2008) use the situation in Nigeria’s Ogoniland as highlighted by Ken Saro-Wiwa to prove that multinational corporations have failed to balance their quest for profits and social responsibilities towards the society they operate in. The text discusses the theory of human rights violations and multinational corporations in third-world countries.

Multinational corporations should not look the other way when human rights are undermined in the countries they operate in. The Shell Company executives in Nigeria were in a better position to demand that the government observes human rights in dealing with citizens who were not satisfied with how both Shell and the government mined oil from their region. The corporation failed Nigerians by engaging in business with corrupt authorities that did not pass the benefits of mining oil to its people.

The authors are successful in their attempt to have a non-bias analysis of what motivated the execution of Saro-Wiwa. The authors of the article do not provide a skewed analysis of events but rely on objective thought to reach their conclusion.

Business organizations should promote human rights in the countries they operate in, it is not enough when large corporations like Shell make a huge amount of profit while the community living in the areas it operates fill short-changed because they do not enjoy the benefits of having such multimillion ventures in their territories.