Lindsay Travis
Management 382
Shell Argument Paper
Shell should follow the same standards in Nigeria that it follows in the US, England and the Netherlands.
1. Principle of Fairness/Distributive Justice – Never take any action that harms the least among us; the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed. Shell makes billions of dollars from the oil drilled in Nigeria, but very little of that is received by the Nigerian people. The village surrounding Shell doesn’t have any running water, and barely has any electricity or health care, things that we consider essential in the US or the Netherlands. Only 2% of Shell Nigeria employees are local. Shell allows itself to get richer and richer off of the Nigerian people’s land while the people live in poverty.
2. Principle of Liberty/Individual Rights - Never take any action that infringes upon others rights. People have the right to protest. But when the local Nigerians protested Shell, it is believed that Shell paid the local military to capture and torture protestors, resulting in deaths. This severe punishment for protesting clearly infringes upon others rights.
3. Principle of Sustainability – Never take any action not in the long term self-interest of the environment. In Nigeria, Shell participates in a large amount of gas flaring. The gas is contaminated, which sends toxic chemicals into the air and water. There have been over 1.5 million tons of oil spills since Shell started drilling in Nigeria, disrupting the homes of
