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Opinion

28 Nov 2014

Author:
Phil Bloomer, Executive Director, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

3rd Annual Forum: The Power of Three?

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The number three has an air of significance about it.  Marketeers use the power of three to sell us products.  The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights has three pillars.  So, as I prepare to make what has become an annual pilgrimage to the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, I am left asking what is the significance of the third Forum?

The third Forum is significant because this event, like the Guiding Principles, is now beyond its infancy.  I hope it will be a forum of mature and assertive debates on the key challenges we face.  2014 has been a year of key advances, and some significant set-backs.  This will all, no doubt, make for interesting and intense, discussion at the Forum.

Pillar 3  

That third pillar, Access to Remedy, will be high on the agenda at the Forum, in part because it has been identified as one of the foci for this year’s event.  Discussions on effective remedy hammer home the reality of our work – preventing abuse, and helping victims gain adequate recompense when their lives have been damaged.

In 2014 avenues for effective remedy are like the eye of a needle – narrow.  It is profoundly worrying that legal avenues appear to be in decline.  Victims have felt the effects of the Kiobel judgment – since the judgment only one new Alien Tort case has been filed against a business entity in US court.  And after cuts to legal aid, access to extra-territorial justice in the UK appears threatened.  However, new legal avenues in other countries, like Canada, are being tested.

On the non-judicial side, I was impressed by Adidas’ policy on a third party complaints mechanism for human rights abuses that explicitly seeks to protect the accuser or whistle-blower, and was developed with worker’s organisations.  This sets new precedents for governments

Lack of effective remedy was a catalyst for another major 2014 development, the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of Ecuador and South Africa’s resolution on a binding treaty.  The cause of much optimism, concern, and debate, it has certainly encouraged dialogue in our broad and diverse movement, and I hope we can use the concept of ‘unity in diversity’ to find complementarity between our strategies to implement the UNGPs, and the incipient work on a binding treaty.

Pillar 2

There is also a growing awareness among business of the human rights impacts of their activities.  The Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety completed its initial inspections of factories this year.  Whilst we all accept this cannot be a panacea for appalling working conditions in Bangladesh, it is a major step towards transparency and accountability by the companies and unions involved.  Leading companies are modelling innovation in human rights in a variety of ways, including through committing to provide a living wage for workers in their supply chain by 2018 (H&M), the first Global Framework Agreement with unions in the textile sector (Inditex), improving their human rights due diligence and reporting (Unilever) or being more transparent around human rights impact assessments (Nestlé). 

These initiatives model innovations towards putting human rights into the core of the business model.  We need so many more of them.  At the third Forum, our movement should use them as the better practice that is essential for the realization of all companies’ responsibility to protect.

Pillar 1

In 2014, and perhaps especially after the Binding Treaty resolution was passed, we have also seen a flurry of government action on business and human rights.  Economic heavyweights like Germany and the US have announced the development of their National Action Plans, joining countries like Denmark and the Netherlands who have already taken this step in the last year.  The third Forum should be a moment to push many more governments to deliver transformational regulation and incentives for human rights in business.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has reached out to over 100 governments for a survey of their actions since June 2011 on business and human rights.  Preliminary results indicate some of the issues governments are prioritizing.  In Africa these were primarily land rights, displacement and discrimination; in Europe, there was a trend towards women’s rights; and in the Middle East, freedom of association & trade union rights were highlighted.  Full results will be available in 2015 in the form of a free public database for all to see.

We have huge challenges to address at this Forum.  In particular, there is a desperate need for effective remedy both judicial and non-judicial.  I hope that the third Forum’s focus on this topic will deliver new analysis, action, and commitment.  Steps taken this year by government and business, in the first and second pillars, are certainly a positive but if we do not build that third pillar in unison, those at risk will remain blighted by the negative impacts of business activities.