"Companies need to do due diligence on human rights abroad", 10 May 2016

Companies...need to understand the human-rights risks they face in overseas operations and supply chains. And, increasingly, their investors do, too... [A] failure of due diligence may lead to regulatory, legal, operational and reputational problems that could and should have been avoided.  That’s why, as shareholders in Potash Corp....Oceanrock Investments’ Meritas Jantzi Social Index mutual fund was concerned when the...company began sourcing phosphate rock from the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara... [The fund filed] a shareholder proposal asking the company to commission and publish an independent human-rights assessment of its sourcing from Western Sahara... 

Most of Western Sahara is occupied by Morocco, whose claim of sovereignty over the territory is not recognized by...the United Nations... The Moroccan government is cited regularly for rights abuses directed at the territory’s residents... Potash Corp.['s]...sizable business relationship with a company accused of “plunder” by international human-rights experts has been controversial...

Potash Corp. has responded to our proposal, saying that its purchases provide economic benefits to the local people and that, as a company, it is not in a position to fix the political situation.  Of course, no one is asking Potash Corp. to fix the political situation.