"Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review Session 23: Myanmar",  March 2015

A range of important issues in the sphere of business and human rights in Myanmar require further attention. Among them is further protection of labour rights; the resolution of land disputes and landlessness; the protection of ethnic and religious minorities from discrimination and violence; and the need for increased access to remedy, including an independent judiciary...The following recommendations are made to the Government of Myanmar in relation to the above concerns: 1. Ratify and implement the remaining five of the eight Fundamental Labour Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Ratify ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. 2. Ratify and implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 3. Strengthen the protection of workers involved in trade union activities to ensure that they do not face discrimination or dismissal by employers. Ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work and remove discriminatory requirements for women in the educational system. 4. Ensure that land reform, including the draft National Land Policy and any new land legislation, fully recognizes customary land tenure rights throughout the country and provides a mechanism for resolving on-going and past land expropriations.Permit people to peacefully protest against land expropriations and other issues and ensure that they are not arbitrarily arrested for such activities. 6. Ensure that public security forces are trained in the use of arms and in protocols concerning proportionality of force, such as the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials. 7. Protect ethnic and religious minorities from discrimination in law and practice, including in the workplace. 8. Ensure that ethnic and religious minorities who have been displaced by armed conflict and inter-communal violence do not lose their claims or rights to land they have traditionally occupied. 9. Require companies to establish operational grievance mechanisms to hear complaints from their workforce and from communities where they operate. 10. Include requirements for companies to assess social and human rights impacts as part of any Environmental (and Social) Impact Assessments conducted. 11. Amend laws that permit Government a wide latitude in acquiring land for use by private businesses by requiring the preparation of an expropriation law that provides for expropriation and involuntary resettlement only in cases of necessary, proportionate, narrowly construed public interest with procedural safeguards.