As the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights enter their tenth year, those
working in close association with the goals first set in 2011, are now ready to step into a new decade, strategies for which, especially after the onset of a grave pandemic, were discussed in the UN Responsible Business and Human Rights Forum. The four-day Asia-Pacific centered program was kick started on June 1st and has been organized collectively by the International Labor Organization, International Organization on Migration, UN Human Rights Platform, US ESCAP, UN Environment Program UNICEF, and UN Women, with support from Sweden Sverige and the European Union.
The program featured several partner civil society organizations, which discussed the UN BHR guiding principles centered on three pillars: The state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and the access to remedy. The panelists trivialized post pandemic recoveries, and boost, for the agendas of child labor, harassment in corporate supply chains, migration patterns, women entrepreneurship, and BHR in the digital era, among many others.
The program opened with a dialogue on the impact of Covid-19 on unemployment in the Asia Pacific region, which led to 81 million workers losing their jobs. This comes against a wider context of issues relating to responsible business, including climate change and environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, rising inequality, shrinking civic space and lack of accountability, among numerous others.
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In the past two decades, the BHR agenda has undergone four phases, said Olivier De Schutter, Professor at the University of Louvain. “In mid 1970s there was an attempt to manage the post-colonial order, legitimize the division of labor in western companies that had global presence. The OECD adopted guidelines on MNCs and the ILO adopted the Tripartite Declaration to ensure that western companies would ‘behave’ in these recently decolonized countries and respect their sovereignty,” he added. In 1980s, trade increased and there was a global shift to market economy. This led to an increase in the global weight of MNCs and supply chains.
“In 2000 we realized that globalization needed to be tamed. Ten principles were provided by the UN in early 2000s, and then finally the 2011 guiding principles came about,” he added.
“We have looked at BHR with the lens of a development state, which has impacted people in various ways. While the state development project has continued, what it has done to the lives of people is significantly different. Communities were affected by their resources-land, mineral, water, forests- being taken away, causing further conflict,” added Indian Human Rights Activist Usha Ramanathan.
Seven sessions were held on Tuesday, and the first one discussed how the BHR agenda should be approached in the next decade. “We will celebrate the progress made during the first 10 years of implementation of BHR guidelines but even more importantly, we will use them to acknowledge the challenges that lie ahead. In the next decade, how can we go beyond preaching to the converted? How can we reach the ones left behind?” stated Livio Sarandrea, Global Business and Human Rights Advisor, UNDP. Discussing a report of the last decade, which will be released officially by the UN Business and Human Rights forum towards the end of June, Mr. Sarandrea said that BHR is increasingly establishing itself as an alternative to the CSR discourse, which tends to overlook the working processes in corporations.
The report also said that companies are adopting human rights policies and engaging in human rights due diligence in increasing numbers, and the publication of National Action Plans on BHR in several APAC countries also hints at progress.
However, Mr. Sarandrea said that several gaps entailed even in the 10 years of progress. “The BHR agenda has still not reached those who need it the most, there is still a disconnect between BHR and other agendas. Laws do not alight with NAPs or other BHR polices. Large areas of Asia are still uncovered. The progress has also especially been stalled because of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he added.
However, Sumi Dhanarajan , Associate Director, APAC, Forum for the Future, added that the next decade needed to entail a bottoms-up approach to ensure that buy-ins from corporate and government leadership did not result in an abandonment of those most vulnerable to supply chain harassments.
The session also featured a panel discussion on ‘Regaining the Lost Momentum in the Fight Against Child Labor’, wherein members from human rights and civil society groups discussed how the target of complete erasure of child labor by 2025 can be achieved. “62 million children in the region continue to be affected by child labor. Seeing that this is the International Year for the elimination of child labor, one must move at a faster pace and continue introducing strong legal frameworks and social protection programs,” said ILO’s Bharati Birla.
Indian Nobel Prize Winner and Child’s Rights Activist Kailash Satyarthi stressed on the need to move beyond rhetoric. “We need not to reinvent solutions, but reinvent our inner conscience, collective moral responsibility, deep compassion for children, adequate political will and new ways to mobilize resources and finances. We need a sense of urgency,” he added.
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The panel also analyzed an increased presence of child labor in the agricultural sector, and sought drivers for the same (trade rate system, unfair crop prices, and family debts).
“In agriculture, workers are paid rates according to volume, bunch, or area of land. They are not paid fixed prices. This reliance on targets adds tremendous pressure on agricultural workers, who end up getting their children to work on the land. We should also work to ensure adequate crop prices, increase unionization so that farmers have collective bargain power,” said Dr. Hidayat Greenfield, Regional Secretary, IUF Asia Pacific. Coca Cola’s Human Rights Manager (South Asia), Shubha Shekhar said that while it is easier to address child labor within the four walls of one’s manufacturing location, companies should develop a direct line of sight beyond tier 1 and tier 2 supply chains. “Business needs to build its understanding on where child labor exists in its supply chains by conducting due diligence with mix of measures,” she added.
Another panel (Business and Human Rights in the Digital Era), which featured speakers from various digital rights foundations, discussed the digital aspect of human rights, and how the APAC region has been impacted by them.
While discussing the B-Tech project of the UN, which is working on the UNGP-BHR guidelines, to assure special human rights, OHCHR’s Lene Wendland said, “With a dynamic and interactive process, the B-TECH project is conducting research with on human rights related to tech companies. It aims to promote robust product and service human rights due diligence, identify the challenges in ensuring access to remedy for harms related to tech use, and hold multi-stakeholder dialogues to inform State action about legal and policy measures which can be taken in times of crisis.”
(The RBHR forum will be holding panel discussions on a number of topics that fall under the nexus of business and human rights until June 4th. You can find the program here.)