Question

Assess whether from a utilitarian, rights, justice and caring perspective, Unocal did the right thing in deciding to invest in the pipeline and then in conducting the project as it did. In your view, and using your utilitarian, rights, justice and caring assessments, did Unocal do the right thing?

CASE:

Unocal in Burma Union Oil Company of California, or Unocal, was founded in 1890 to develop oil fields around Los Angeles and other parts of California. By 1990, Unocal had operations in all aspects of the oil business, including extraction, refining, distribution, marketing, and even retail (the company owned a chain of Union 76 gas stations). With most oil fields in the United States nearing depletion, the company had turned to investing in energy projects outside the country. Unocal's strategy was to market itself to governments as a company that had expertise in all aspects of oil and gas production. According to Roger C. Beach, CEO of the company, "What every government likes about Unocal is one-stop shopping-one group able to take the whole project from development to the marketing end." One of the international projects that attracted the company's attention was a natural gas field called the "Yadana Field" that belonged to Burma. The Yadana Field is located in the Andaman Sea beneath 150 feet (46 meters) of water off Burma's shore. Estimates indicated the field contained more than 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to produce natural gas continuously for approximately 30 years. In 1992, the government of Burma had formed a state-owned company named the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) to find private companies to help it develop the Yadana Field. In 1992, it signed a contract with Total S.A, a French company that gave Total the right to develop the field and build a pipeline to transport the gas from Yadana to Thailand, where the government of Thailand would buy the gas. The government of Burma stood to net an estimated $200-$400 million per year for the life of the project. A portion of these revenues would be paid to the companies that partnered with Burma. MOGE, the government-owned company, signed a contract with Total agreeing to "assist by providing security protection and rights of way and easements as may be requested by the companies with which it partnered. While its partner companies would actually construct the project, Burma would provide security through its army, which would also ensure that land was cleared and rights of way secured for the passage of the pipeline through Burma. The Burmese project appealed to Unocal. Burma was attractive for several reasons. First, labor was cheap and relatively educated. Second, Burma was rich in natural gas resources, and its many other untapped resources presented major opportunities. Third, Burma was an entry point into other potentially lucrative international markets. Burma not only offered a potentially large market itself, it also occupied a strategic location that could serve as a link to markets in China, India, and other countries in Southeast Asia. Finally, the Burmese government maintained a stable political climate. With the military to maintain law and order, the political environment was extremely dependable. Before committing itself to the project, Unocal evaluated its risk position by conducting research on the socialpolitical environment of the country. Burma is a Southeast Asian country with a population of 42 million and land mass about the size of Texas. Burma is bounded by India to the northwest, China to the north and northeast, Laos to the east, Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea to the south. The majority of the population, some 69 percent, is Burmese, while Karens, Kachins, Shans, Chins, Rakhines, Indians, and Chinese are minorities in the

Answer 1

Answer

Ethics is a field of research that deals with theories of positive and poor behaviour, or a subset of philosophy that deals with morally correct or incorrect things. In this scenario, field project operations between Unocal and Yadana can be seen from a multitude of viewpoints. Five out of We are: Utilitarian views, Rights, Justice, and Caring perspective.

1) Utilitarian Perspective

Utilitarian itself requires assuming the something who affects the largest number of people is a morally decent practice. And here are two compounds quite the opposite; expense and gain. Gain is what people want to get in this case, without caring about the costs. Regardless matter how much losses they have accrued, what people see is the profit Of a business. To consider if Unocal wants to participate in the Yadana project from a solely practical point of view, we should take certain costs and profits from the project Plan, e.g. Small businesses expanded, Unocal and other firms constructed roads and schools along the pipeline, created employment for Burmese people, decreased child mortality along the pipeline and Thailand enjoyed cleaner natural gas. Nevertheless, the scheme still had several costs: the Burmese government persecuted civilians who protested the scheme and even killed them, hundreds of them. Karen was forced to relocate to accommodate the pipeline expansion, and forced labor was also encountered. Considering the risks and benefits, the Utilitarian approach would believe the proposal has more advantages than the disadvantages. So it is a positive thing that Unocal spends its capital in the Yadana pipeline.

2) Rights Perspective

Human rights are the basic rights that human beings enjoy as they are people, and that no country can establish or abrogate. Human rights are genuinely important to all. All will seek attention equally for no gaps with the others. The concern with this initiative is that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have released a report alleging that the Burmese army has forced labour and brutalized the Karen people to provide protection for workers and supplies from Unocal. Unocal explicitly claimed that human rights abuses continued to exist. From this point Unocal appears to be incorrect agreed to spend their money in this initiative, because it has a negative effect on the business become a resident.

3) Justice Perspective

Justice gives each what is his right. The ethical approach to justice is simply to ensure that we are handled equally, with equitable allocation of rewards and costs. Taking into account the facts obtained from the viewpoint of Utilitarian and Liberties, Unocal 's situation should be analyzed from the three separate branches of law, as follows:

i) Distributive justice is where various groups demand the advantages and responsibility of government, and all the demands can not be fulfilled. Through the point of view of distributive justice, we may infer that the gain is that citizens in the region around the pipeline benefited from the projects Unocal and the other corporations implemented in the field. While the Unocal offers the workers the incentives, the employees are forced to relocate with reimbursement from the land near the SLORC pipeline governing.

ii) Retributive justice is justified when it comes to punishing people for doing bad. From the point of view of retributive justice, it seems that Unocal was mistaken in its decisions to invest in the Yadana scheme, as it was sued in both the Federal and the State courts in the US and the subsequent negative press and industry boycotts in the US ultimately put Unocal out of business through a merger with Chevron

iii) Compensatory justice is the right to return to a victim everything the victim suffered because he or she was wronged. On a Compensatory Justice point of view, Unocal was correct to invest in the Yadana pipeline as the out-of-court settlement compensated fairly the Karen population who had suffered as a result of the scheme.

4) Caring Perspective

Through a compassionate standpoint ethics illustrates the importance of partnerships. Since compassion for other people is the center of human life and, thus, ethics. It's just gone.
Suggested that we, as individuals, run the risk of burnout and self-sacrifice in requesting treatment for those who depend on us, be it our families, society or even country. Once again, based on the numerous findings from the U.S. Department of State, non-profit groups and even Unocal's own research, it seemed that Unocal was not right to invest in the context of care's Yadana project fran ethics. It is due to the essence of caring ethics that stresses compassion , empathy, and relationship growth. Because the Burmese army viewed the Karen people poorly or with little sympathy, and with the Unocal awareness breached the principles of the future of love.

Yes, Unocal is legally responsible for the injuries that some of the Karen people are suffered. To make an unbiased point of view, we need to study the ethical or moral values in the Yadana field project, which are: utilitarianism, freedom, justice and treatment. Like it used to be In this scenario, Unocal had studied the socio-political situation in Burma before deciding to invest in it. They also hired a consulting company to study the 1991 Amnesty International Report, which focused on the army's repression of the Burmese. While the information about human rights abuses in Burma had been obtained, The organization continued to invest in the enterprise, and even the uncertainties that could occur. In 1995, Unocal employed consultants to investigate conditions in the Yadana area, and was again told that numerous human rights abuses already occurred during the construction of the pipeline. Such breach of principles or morality evidently existed in accordance with Unocal 's case in Burma including:

1) Violation of the definition of freedom, as it was mentioned in the literature that human rights abusses were still taking place in the region and that they were still common.

2) Violation of the theory of fairness, because the gains and losses were not spread evenly and equally

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