“Innovative approaches in company-community dispute resolution in complex environments. Report on the panel session organized by the Community of Practice of dialogue facilitators in partnership with PeaceNexus, IMCP, and PartnersGlobal, and with the support of ACCESS Facility”, 28 Jan 2016

The defining features of complex environments are that they may be conflict prone, fragile, or suffer from pronounced levels of corruption, weak rule of law, or other socio-political and socio-economic challenges.  While the potential for business to play an important stabilizing role is increasingly recognized, often large scale investments create or exacerbate conflicts in complex environments.  The business and human rights field calls for new approaches for managing relationships between companies, communities and governments based on practice and evidence.  However, in complex environments the presence of power imbalances or tensions among parties demand new approaches in community-company dispute resolution that will produce outcomes that are compatible with people's rights…Trust between the stakeholders was a central theme that emerged in the discussions.  It takes effort and patience to build over time, and cannot be forced onto the parties.