Concern over the Appointment of Sir Peter Sutherland at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

We, the undersigned, believe that the reputation of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is not best served by the appointment of Sir Peter Sutherland, Chairman of British Petroleum (BP), as the Chair of LSE Council and as a Governor of the LSE. BP has a documented history of alleged environmental and social abuses. These include the Prudhoe Bay Alaskan Oil Spill, where BP spilled 265,000 oil barrels after being fined in 2002 for illegally failing to install a leak detection system promptly; the Baku-Tbilisi-Cehyan (BTC) Oil Pipeline, where BPs contract with the 3 governments involved, who have poor human rights record, overrides domestic social and environmental legislation, and where the pipeline is causing disruption, included confiscation of property, to communities along the pipeline while delivering them no energy, despite the regions energy poverty; and similar infractions surrounding pipelines in West Papua, Colombia and the North Sea, where BP has a record of driving down taxes, depriving states of revenue and energy, human rights abuses, confiscation of property with little or no compensation and environmental disasters.

We feel that this appointment is a serious cause of concern for the students of the LSE, the LSE Students Union (SU) and all those inside and outside the university who believe that this selection does not fit with LSEs reputation as a world-renowned social sciences institution providing ground-breaking research on human rights, social inclusion and environmental governance. Therefore, in general terms, we urge the LSE to make a clear, renewed commitment to human rights and the LSE Environmental Policy, and to improve the environmental and ethical standards of the LSE campus and buildings in line with these commitments. Following this, we urge the LSE to cooperate with the student body and the LSESU in the detailing of more specific demands.