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The Late Sergio Vieira de Mello
United Nations: High Commissioner for Human Rights
The UN human-rights system are now addressing the role of the business
sector. Several standard-setting initiatives, recently concluded or
underway, will reinforce this trend. Indirect obligations for corporations
will be strengthened through new or proposed treaties that deal with
anti-corruption and tobacco control, for example -- both of which touch on
human rights issues. Governments are negotiating and endorsing other
standards that place indirect obligations on companies, for example with
respect to the sale of diamonds from areas of armed conflict and the illicit
trade in small arms. The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of
Human Rights -- an expert body of the inter-governmental Commission on Human
Rights -- is in the process of developing human-rights principles for
companies under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
universally accepted norms. These principles are expected to place direct
obligation on companies. The European Parliament has called on the European
Union to adopt binding human-rights regulations to govern the conduct of
transnational corporations based in Europe.
It is often assumed that companies would oppose the development of legal
standards to respect human rights. Recourse to law suggests (expensive)
compliance procedures and possible litigation. However, companies committed
to respecting rights will want to have some guidance in fulfilling that
commitment; and all companies will benefit from clarity in international
law. When the scope of duties is doubtful, companies cannot easily defend
themselves or prevent criticism. Beyond that, corporate commitments to human
rights should not carry market penalties. Where commitments are purely
voluntary, pioneering companies might lose out to competitors who aren’t as
committed to human rights. International standards provide a level playing
field.
I believe that binding standards are crucial to enable the enforcement of
minimum norms. But that is different, of course, from making a business case
for change. We must provide incentives so that doing the right thing also
makes good business sense. By focusing exclusively on setting standards,
business is driven toward the logic of managing the costs of compliance.
Society will then fail to benefit from the tremendous power of business to
innovate and establish new forms of behaviour.
Business leaders don’t have to wait – indeed, increasingly they can’t afford
to wait – for governments to pass and enforce legislation before they pursue
“good practices” in support of international human rights standards within
their own operations and in the societies of which they are part.
The Global Compact offers one possible vehicle for corporations to engage in
achieving public goals. Formally launched by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
in July 2000, the Global Compact calls on business leaders, trade unions and
NGOs to join forces behind a set of core values in the areas of human
rights, labour standards and the environment and to enact these principles
within their spheres of influence. The Secretary-General picked these three
areas because he was worried by a severe imbalance in global rule-making:
while there are extensive and enforceable rules for economic priorities,
there are few strong measures for these other concerns that have such a
direct impact on human welfare.
Once a company has signed up to the Global Compact, it should set in motion
changes to business operations so that the Global Compact and its principles
become part of strategy, culture and day-to-day operations. The company is
expected to publicly advocate the Global Compact and its principles via
corporate communications such as press releases and speeches. It is further
expected to publish in its annual report or similar document (e.g.,
sustainability report) a description of the ways in which it is supporting
the Global Compact and all its nine principles.
They wanted our land
for their cursed reservoir
and dam, and we
were in the way.
Survivor of the Chixoy Dam Project Massacre in Guatemala
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New Academy
Review: Volume 2 Number 1
Spring 2003:
Special Issue: Business and
Human Rights
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Markets
cannot operate in a way that promotes both private and common interests
without effective regulation.
Chris Marsden
The analytical fog surrounding CSR provides a smokescreen for
companies.
Sir Geoffrey Chandler
The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls upon all individuals and all
organs of society to protect, uphold and promote human rights. This
applies to governments and companies, individuals and groups.
Sergio Vieira de Mello
What could suddenly turn ruthless profit making
corporations and their governments into do-gooders – apart from more
profit making?
Zrinka Bralo
Multinational corporations no longer have carte
blanche to abuse human rights, whether directly or by proxy.
Anita Roddick
The KPMG Interview (an
extract)
Neil Sherlock
Guaranteeing human rights has traditionally been the remit of the state.
Why, then, are we increasingly hearing about human rights within the
context of business and, in particular, as a corporate responsibility?
Noreena Hertz
I think part of it is to do
with the fact over the past few years the media has been explicitly
linking business to human rights. In 1996 for example Kathy Lee Gifford
– a talk show host and the American equivalent of Judy from ‘Richard and
Judy’ - was confronted on national TV about her branded line of clothing
being produced in sweatshops in Honduras by girls paid 30 cents an hour.
The story got huge coverage and off the back of that a number of other
companies, including Walt Disney and Nike, were ‘outed’ for their labour
practices. Thanks to the media the public became much more aware that
subcontracting or outsourcing meant goods they bought in their home
towns were manufactured using practices that were increasingly viewed as
unacceptable. Businesses soon realised that this level of public concern
brought with it a potential risk to their reputations.
Photo By Christian Niaki |
Contents
A View from the Chair Anita Roddick
Guest Editor - Business and Human Rights – the start of a long-term
relationship? John Morrison
Views from the Board:
Why Business should care about human rights - Robert H. Dunn &
Aron Cramer
Labour Rights are Human Rights - Janet Williamson
Leader to Leader
Human Rights: What role for Business? - Sergio Vieira de
Mello
Participating in Governance: the Social Responsibility of Companies &
NGOs - Chris Marsden
Debating points
The curse of “Corporate Social Responsibility” - Sir Geoffrey
Chandler
Genesis of the UN Norms of Responsibility and their Significance
David Weissbrodt
Why Should Investors care About Human Rights? - Rob Lake, Kirsty
Scott Thomas & Rory Sullivan
Peer-reviewed Papers
Business & Housing Rights: Making Profits without Forcing People from
their Homes - Scott Leckie
From Bhopal to Doha: Business and the Right to Health - Sophia
Swithern
The Challenge of Good Corporate Citizenship and the Role of the Business
Lawyer Yasmin Waljee
Communicating Human Rights: a Summary of European Annual Reports Matthew
Grenier,
Research Notes
DENMARK: Danish Institute for Human Rights - Margaret Jungk
AUSTRALIA: Casten Centre for Human Rights Law David
Kinley, Sarah Joseph & Adam McBeth
ARGENTINA: CEDHA Jorge
Daniel Taillant
SWITZERLAND: UN University Andrew Clapham
A
Geography of Corporate Risk
Business & Human Rights The Risk of being left behind Lucy
Amis Prince of Wales’ International Business Leader’s Forum
Case Studies
The Pharmaceutical industry & the “right to health”: Sune Skadegard
Thorsen
Coltan: An Industry’s Dilemma Solitaire Townsend
Azerbaijan: Oil. Conflict & Displacement - Philip
Rudge
Supply chain Management and Human Rights: the Ethical Initiative
- Elaine Jones
The Impact of Oil Companies on the Conflict in Sudan Angelina Teny
Web Initiatives
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Chris Avery
Regular Contributors
Respect Europe
A Business Leader’s Initiative for Human Rights Mattias Iweborg
KPMG
Mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting: Implications for
Business & Human Rights Alan Miller
The KPMG Interview: Neil Sherlock talks to Noreena Hertz
New Business Academy
Bridging the Gap: Developing Human Rights Change Agents for Business
Luke Wilde & Sally Britton
Advance Notice:
Business and Human Rights Conference, London, 9 December 2003
Parting Shots
Corporate Social Responsibility: A View from Exile - Zrinka Bralo
Book Reviews
Whats On
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John Morrison: Guest Editor
There is mounting evidence to suggest that human rights will play an
increasingly greater role in mainstream CSR approaches. Any business
engaging in the language of sustainable development or ethical
globalisation will need to be as rigorous about their social codes as
their environmental. Whether it is the Global Compact, Global Reporting
Initiative or the OECD guidelines, human rights is creeping in as being
the only social code which can claim to be both universal and objective.
A false dichotomy still exists between labour rights and human rights in
some of these codes, and some tend to champion civil and political
rights over the often neglected economic, social and cultural, but
gradually businesses are being led to the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and everything which flowed from it. Some of the most
successful networks are the Ethical Trading Initiative based in London,
Business for Social Responsibility based in San Francisco and Paris, the
Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen, the Prince of Wales
International Business Leader’s Forum in London. The late Sergio Vieira
de Mello, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, outlines the work
of his Office and that of the United Nation’s Global Compact. David
Weissbrodt, an expert member of the UN Human Rights Sub-Committee,
describes the possible next step in this evolution: ‘Draft Human Rights
Norms for Business’. As Mary Robinson comments:
“It’s not a simple case of choosing between voluntary or regulatory
systems to induce corporate responsibility. If indeed we believe that
universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour rights, and
the environment should become an integral part of business strategies
and day-to-day operations, regulation alone won’t be sufficient. It must
be coupled with a concerted effort to stimulate good practices, to be
innovative, to give leadership."
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the
challenge of good corporate citizenship and the role of the business
lawyer
Abstract
The legal profession is highly regulated by professional standards
codes. These codes identify the duties of the lawyer to the clients,
the court and, to a lesser degree, non-clients, for example acting in
the client’s best interest, the duty of confidentiality and the duty to
act fairly. These duties are sometimes in conflict but lawyers,
commercial or otherwise, are used to reconciling different interests.
However, a sadly neglected area of research is the relationship between
lawyers’ duties arising from their professional standards codes and
their obligations under international human rights law. This paper
seeks to examine the interplay between competing professional
obligations and international human rights law, and to explore the
extent to which good practice on the part of commercial lawyers could
promote greater observance of human rights by corporate entities.
Yasmin Walji: - Lovells
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From Bhopal to Doha : Business and the Right to Health
Abstract
Recent years have seen much progress in standard-setting, definition and
action in challenge to these assumptions. Though in many ways not beyond
their formative stages, ‘health and human rights’ and ‘business and
human rights’ have emerged in parallel trends as dynamic, legitimate and
vital fields. The right to health has been long enshrined in
international agreements, from the WHO Constitution, to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and to the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). However, meaningful
advances in understanding the interface between health and human rights
have come to prominence over the past 15 years, with significant headway
made in understanding economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) and
in the evolution of a health and human rights discourse. At the same
time, ‘business and human rights’ is becoming well-established as human
rights thinking broadens to address the role of corporate actors, and
businesses make moves towards recognising the centrality of human rights
to social responsibility.
The relationship between health and business is of course more than one
of parallel evolution. Business activities have the potential to impact
significantly on the individual’s right to health. Safety in the
workplace, control of chemical emissions, displacement of indigenous
persons, investment into pharmaceutical research and development, all
intersect with the human right “to the highest attainable standard of
health.” From Bhopal to Doha, health is a business issue.
Sophia Swithern
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BUSINESS AND HOUSING RIGHTS:
Making Profits Without Forcing People From Their Homes
Abstract
Businesses
are important players in matters relating to housing and how and in
which conditions people live. In many countries, particularly in the
more wealthy countries, the private sector – working through real estate
companies, the construction industry and corporations engaged in the
provision of infrastructure – is involved in the production of a
significant portion of new housing stock. While well over three-quarters
of new homes built in the developing world are built by the residents
themselves within the context of the informal sector, in the developed
world and often in urban centres in developing countries, business has
an important role to play in the provision of housing. Housing issues
are also relevant to business when a company provides housing directly
to workers. Businesses that are serious about corporate responsibility
and complying with international human rights standards need to ensure
that if they do actively provide housing to workers (such as plantation
workers, workers from the extraction industries based in often distant
locales and others), that that housing is fully consistent with
international housing rights standards of adequacy. This would include,
among others, rights to security of tenure, affordable housing,
accessible housing and habitable housing.
... While businesses can surely
be very positive forces for the housing sector as a whole, companies can
all too easily be involved – both explicitly and implicitly through the
legal doctrine of corporate complicity – in violations of housing
rights. This is particularly true in the context of the construction of
large dams and other development projects, especially those involving
gas and oil, where companies may wish to resettle people living on land
they wish to develop.
Throughout the world every year millions of people are forcibly evicted
from their homes and lands, generally in violation of basic human rights
standards, and almost always without legal due process ... The corporate
sector is also commonly involved in activities that lead to evictions
and subsequent housing rights violations. This
article looks briefly at how companies, both big and small, can take
more pro-active approaches designed to prevent involvement in housing
rights violations such as forced evictions, and thus avoid displacing
people from their homes and lands.
Scott Leckie |
Supply
Chain Management And Human Rights: The Ethical Trading Initiative
Abstract
This case study sets out to demonstrate that the Ethical Trading
Initiative (ETI) provides a framework for collaboration between diverse
sectors of society in order to apply Codes of Conduct as a means of
improving social and economic human rights within the scope of a trading
relationship. At the same time, the efforts of the Ethical Trading
Initiative have served to “up the ante” on examining the role of
governments and other sectors within the wider civil society – all this
within an historical political context which demands attention to
international human rights.
The Ethical Trading Initiative is a coalition of businesses,
non-governmental organisations and unions. Founded in 1998, its purpose
is to achieve positive improvements in working conditions in
international supply chains through the application of a Code of Conduct
based on International Labour Standards. The ETI base code is intended
to provide the template for member Companies’ Codes and is based on
International Labour Organisation (ILO) core conventions. These core
conventions enshrine basic labour rights which essentially form a
minimum framework for the application of social and economic human
rights in the relationship between two key parties: a buyer and a
seller.
The premise is that Codes of Conduct can achieve positive change and the
degrees of effectiveness of their application is critiqued.
Elain Jones, Body Shop International
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Communicating human rights: a summary of recent trends in European
annual reports
Abstract
This paper is based on annual research conducted into the
communications effectiveness of annual reports produced by the leading
100 European companies by market capitalisation over the past five
years. The research examines these annual reports from the perspective
of the reader, and over the past three years has identified the growth
in statements of ethical intent or commitment to Corporate Social
Responsibility. The paper focuses, in particular, on examples of
statements made by companies within their annual reports about human
rights, reflecting on how effectively these are communicated. The paper
concludes that the current level of human rights communication within
annual reports by these European companies is at a nascent stage,
although there are some proponents of good practice.
Matthew Grenier, Hoop Associates |
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