In a sweeping affirmation of economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, an African commission has ruled the Nigerian government should compensate the Ogoni people for abuses against their lands, environment, housing and health caused by oil production and government security forces.

In addition to providing restitution to the Ogoni, the nine-member African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) called on Nigeria to undertake a ''comprehensive cleanup of lands and rivers damaged by oil operations''.

It must also ensure that the social and environmental impact of future oil development on its territory does not harm local communities.

The Commission's decision, which has not been widely publicised, is being hailed by human rights activists as a major breakthrough in the battle for international recognition of ESC rights, which have long been given lesser status, particularly by Western countries, than political and civil rights.

''This is the first decision by the African Commission to specifically and comprehensively address violations of economic and social and cultural rights under the Africa Charter,'' said Felix Morka, director of the Lagos-based Social and Economic Rights Actions Centre (SERAC), which launched the case against the military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha in 1996.

Strongest statement

''It is also the strongest and most articulate statement on the validity and enforceability of economic and social rights emanating from any intergovernmental human rights body,'' he told IPS.

''It is a remarkable decision indeed,'' said Bronwen Manby, a Nigeria specialist at the London office of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

''The very fact that it's a decision by the African Commission  ''to a general satisfactory environment favourable to [the peoples'] development"; to ''freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources"; or to adequate compensation when those resources are taken or spoiled; the right to property, and the rights to shelter and food.

Governments, the Commission argued, have an obligation to protect these rights, including against threats from private parties. ''Contrary to its Charter obligations," it said, "the Nigerian Government has given the green light to private actors, and the oil Companies in particular, to devastatingly affect the well-being of the Ogonis."

''By any measure of standards, its practice falls short of the minimum conducted expected of governments.''

Positive force

''The intervention of multinational corporations may be a potentially positive force for development if the State and the people concerned are ever mindful of the common good and the sacred rights of individuals and communities,'' continued the decision.

The decision is important for people throughout the world who suffer from corporate practices, said Roger Normand, director of the New York-based Center for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESR), which co-sponsored the case with SERAC.

''I believe that this can serve as a precedent not only throughout Africa, but also for all similar efforts to hold governments accountable for gross human rights violations linked to abusive corporate practices,'' he added.

Normand and others also agreed with Morka that the decision is the strongest affirmation to date by an inter-governmental body of ESC rights. Despite their inclusion in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights this family of rights have tended to be given second-class status by the West, including Western-based human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

More as privileges

While Western nations agreed most recently at the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna that all rights in the Universal Declaration are indivisible and interdependent, they have tended to treat economic and social rights in particular more as privileges than as rights.

''For most of the past 50 years, these rights were totally neglected by governments and human rights NGOs,'' according to Larry Cox, senior programme officer for international human rights at the New York-based Ford Foundation.

''But in the last five years, we've seen the beginning of real momentum on these rights led first and foremost by groups in the Global South who are in many ways the most adversely affected by the lack of such rights,'' he noted.

"That's the history of the human rights movement: people who make these rights real are the victims who are fighting for them.''

In that respect, according to Normand, the Commission's decision ''is moving ahead of Western standards in the protection of economic, social and cultural rights - an important achievement for Africa, but an example for the rest of the world as well''. — IPS