Leaders from business, inter-governmental bodies and campaign groups will gather in London next week to discuss how companies can protect and promote human rights. Among the speakers will be senior executives of ABB, Barclays, MTV and Novartis.
It will be the culmination of a busy year that has seen business lobbies and human rights activists at each other’s throats over how much responsibility companies bear and how they should be held accountable. After the fighting, however, opposing sides have been doing a lot of talking and have begun to find common ground.
Disagreements came to a head over proposed United Nations rules for business known as the UN Norms, which bring together a plethora of international human rights instruments in a single code and envisage ways of enforcing them.
The code, hotly contested by business lobbies since its publication last year, was drawn up against a background of rising pressure on companies over human rights.
Sectors that were previously immune from scrutiny, such as banking, are now attracting the attention of human rights campaigners.
Human rights lawsuits are being brought under the controversial Alien Tort Claims Act that allows cases to be heard in the US over companies’ alleged activities in third countries. Multinationals, meanwhile, continue to walk a tightrope in politically troubled regions.
In one of the most recent examples, Royal Dutch/Shell and Eni of Italy denied accusations by a militia leader that they assisted government forces in a crackdown in the troubled Niger Delta where conflict has cut Shell’s oil production.
Amid these sensitive events, there is lively debate over where the responsibility of business begins and ends.
There is particular concern in some business quarters over what happens in countries where the state violates or fails to enforce human rights. Campaigners say companies should adhere, and be held accountable, to international standards of human rights in these circumstances.
Business groups have strongly resisted the draft UN norms, particularly the suggestion that companies’ compliance with human rights obligations might be monitored by outside bodies.
Human rights activists feared that pressure from business would lead the 53-member UN human rights commission to shelve the code at its meeting in April.
There is debate over where responsibility of business begins and ends
However, a UK-led resolution kept the proposal alive by calling on the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (UNHCHR) to prepare a report on the legal status and scope of existing human rights standards relating to the private sector.
Stakeholders are being consulted on the report. Last month, 70 representatives of business, labour unions, campaign groups and UN agencies met to discuss the issues, finding more common ground than many had expected. There have also been about 100 submissions to the UNHCHR.
Peter Frankental of Amnesty International says the subject now has a higher political profile. “The process taking place in the office of the high commissioner is locating this debate right at the heart of the UN, which is important.”
Companies’ responsibilities are being considered in much greater detail than under the UN Global Compact, a voluntary initiative that lays down general human rights principles for business, he says.
However, some corporate lobbies, such as the United States Council for International Business, still have serious concerns about the norms.
The council says it objects to their broad interpretation of human rights to include environmental protection and “aspirational goals” such as adequate housing for all.
“The key flaw is the attempt to shift the obligation to enforce human rights laws from governments to companies,” says Adam Greene, vice-president of labour affairs and corporate responsibility at USCIB.
“Our position is that all companies are required to comply with all relevant human rights laws (even in countries where there is little to no enforcement), but that enforcement must be left to government institutions with the proper mandate and authority to do so, based on due process and impartial courts.”
The norms themselves emphasise that governments have the primary responsibility for human rights, including ensuring that companies respect them - and campaigners also stress that the role of business is complementary to that of the state and cannot be a substitute.
Mr Frankental says business lobbies are out of step with some of their own members. Ten companies, most of them operating internationally, have joined the Business Leaders’ Initiative on Human Rights which aims to test the practical use of the norms and other standards in everyday operations.
“I think there is a division between a number of individual companies that see the norms as a useful checklist for their own risk management in human rights and industry bodies that are very backward in their thinking on the relevance and importance of human rights issues for companies,” he adds.
As well as ABB, Barclays, MTV and Novartis, another member of the business leaders’ initiative is Statoil, the Norwegian energy group, which is working with the UN Development Programme in Venezuela to train judges.
Other members are Hewlett-Packard and Gap, two US companies that joined recently, Novo Nordisk, Body Shop and National Grid Transco of the UK. Next week’s meeting in London, organised by the initiative, will be a chance to discuss their progress.
Although the future of the norms is uncertain, they have provoked a timely debate.
In March the human rights commission will consider the UNHCHR report with a view to identifying ways of strengthening standards for business.
