Report: Business and human rights update

Abstract

REPORT ❐ BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS She also expressed ‘the need for an international binding instrument on the corporate obligation to respect human rights’. Amnesty International’s Joe Westby reported that ‘the discussions at the Forum are primarily focused on implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, But despite much talk of progress, there is little evidence that governments are actually willing to tackle the root causes of problems around business and human rights’. He noted the ‘frustration among NGOs over slow progress exhibited at the UN Forum’. Drawing a biting distinction between the illustrious setting of the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva and the toxic devastation left by the Bhopal gas leak, he noted that ‘governments in ‘home states’ still turn a blind eye to serious human rights abuses involving their companies abroad. Many of the barriers to justice faced by the Bhopal survivors are systemic problems that require concerted action. However, avenues to justice seem to be closing rather than opening’. He lamented that ‘companies continue to publicly support human rights, but when faced with even modest demands – for example to disclose payments made to governments or publicly report on their supply chains or their impact on human rights – they fight tooth and nail to oppose them. It is overwhelmingly clear that companies will not go far enough on their own initiative – which is why the UN has such a potentially key part to play’. This year’s annual report on corporate legal accountability from the Business and Human Rights Resources Centre, frankly titled ‘Barriers worsen for victims seeking justice’ observed: ■ ‘steep and worsening barriers that prevent most victims of abuses involving companies from accessing justice’; ■ ‘less availability of courts in countries where companies are headquartered’ ■ ‘threats to lawyers bringing human rights cases against companies’. Enter the labour movement Better late than never, goes the saying, and trade unions are finally participating in the UN’s work on business and human rights by sending appropriately technically skilled delegations to participate . Although still comprising only a handful of people, this rush of labour movement lawyers, PhDs and senior officials, all present at the Forum, must of course be welcomed, but it seems unfortunate that the unions couldn’t muster this kind of participation back when all the fundamental terms of settlement were still to play for, in 2007-2010. Business as usual Some breathless reviews emerged from the CSR world, but many NGOs remain deeply sceptical: barriers to corporate liability are getting worse, not better INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 24 Volume 20 Issue 4 2013 DANIEL BLACKBURN is Director of ICTUR in London. Daniel is a UK-qualified lawyer and was awarded a distinction and academic prize for his MA thesis on the legal history of business and human rights I n December 2013 1,700 participants attended the second UN Forum on Business and Human Rights to examine and discuss the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in the two years since their unanimous endorsement by the Human Rights Council. It would be fair to say that most stakeholders at the Forum showed a strong commitment to the Guiding Principles, and a number of glowing reviews of the Forum emerged from the CSR world, but many civil society groups remain deeply sceptical of the process. During the Forum the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (‘SOMO’), the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (‘ICAR’), the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, and the International Federation for Human Rights (‘FIDH’) hosted a ‘Civil Society Dialogue’. Mariëtte van Huijstee of SOMO raised three key criticisms as outcomes of that session: ■ States and businesses ‘are doing far too little to implement the UNGPs and thereby fail to fulfil their respective duties and responsibilities to protect and respect human rights’. ■ Only one National Action Plan has been published so far, which includes far too little substance to create meaningful impact on the ground’. ■ ‘The same holds for human rights due diligence implementation efforts by companies. Instead of a focus on avoiding risks of human rights violations, human rights due diligence too often involves a simply seeking to avoid risk to corporate reputation’. Ms van...