Redress for Transnational Business-Related Human Rights Abuses in the UK

Abstract

Around the world, peoples’ lives are affected by the actions of businesses. In addition to positive impacts on livelihoods, ideas or technologies, business activity is also sometimes associated with significant human rights abuses, for example through land dispossession and forced resettlement, exploitation of workers, environmental damage or harm to people’s health. Access to remedy for these abuses is frequently impeded by failures of domestic legal systems, limited options in terms of redress mechanisms, significant structural imbalances of power between corporations and local communities, and distance — geographic, cultural, bureaucratic, political and economic – from decision-makers and established redress mechanisms.This report contributes to ongoing debates about how the United Kingdom can best fulfil its obligations to enable people affected by human rights failures of UK companies abroad to access remedy, with a particular focus on the distinctive role of non-judicial redress systems. The report asks: what effects do transnational non-judicial mechanisms have? Under what conditions do they contribute to human rights remedy? And how can the design and operation of non-judicial redress mechanisms be improved?Analysis of these questions draws on empirical research carried out over a period of three years into communities and workers pursuing remedy from grievances in garment and footwear, mining, industrial and agribusiness sectors in India and Indonesia. In the case studies we examined, workers and communities sought justice using a variety of strategies including organising and protesting, transnational campaigning, court cases, negotiation and making complaints to non-judicial mechanisms at the national and transnational level. This research paints a rich picture of the complexity, difficulty and often limited success of communities and workers seeking remedy or justice for human rights abuses through non-judicial as well as formal redress channels, leading to a number of key findings.