Companies leave themselves exposed to enormous risk if they assume that governments should bear the entire burden of managing human rights issues. Briefing reviews some of the dilemmas facing managers today.
Like apple pie and motherhood, who can fail to be in favour of trying to protect human rights?
That’s why companies are on a hiding to nothing if, faced with expressions of concern, they appear – as some have in the past – to say it’s really nothing to do with us – talk to governments. But once you’ve admitted some responsibility, real difficulties arise about definitions and applicability.
At one extreme, if a company knowingly supplies equipment (say) to a government intending to use it in a way that breaks international law, the company is clearly complicit in an abuse – morally at least, even if legal enforcement is more problematic. However, at the other extreme, the last round of debates on the proposed UN norms came close to creating open-ended responsibility.
Since article 3 of the Universal Declaration demands respect for the right to life and as food and medicine are essential for life, so the argument almost went, then pharmaceutical and food companies must make their products readily available, never mind the economics, otherwise they are abusing human rights…
Since then much good work has been done to tease out these issues, and John Ruggie is proving a moderating and effective influence. But there are still plenty of grey areas over what is practical, especially outside owned and operated businesses, as the news story overleaf from ING demonstrates.
At the end of the day, the Universal Declaration is essentially an agreement between and about governments and countries, whatever its declared scope. Companies should rightly resist governments off-loading their own responsibilities. Indeed there is quite a case for putting pressure back on the UN to be more effective at getting its member governments to behave. Examples include the still very patchy adoption of ILO labour standards on freedom of association (China comes to mind) and putting more effective pressure on recalcitrant states (South Africa towards Zimbabwe?).
It’s clear more debate is needed about this key topic.In this issue of Briefing, we’ve assembled a range of advice and viewpoints, to help companies what they should – and should not – be doing on human rights.
Related news
Business keen to avoid human rights scandals
Global companies are keen to avoid the risk of human rights scandals, according to a survey of the Fortune 500 companies published on September 1.
Furthermore, nine out of ten (91%) of the companies surveyed have practices in place to manage human rights, according to the survey commissioned by Professor John Ruggie, the UN secretary general’s special representative for business and human rights. While only 102 companies responded to the poll – a good response rate, according to Ruggie – the survey indicated that a growing number of businesses are taking steps to manage risks around human rights abuses.
The survey also found that just under half (46%) of companies said they had experienced a “significant human rights issue”, with two-thirds of those that had experienced problems coming from the mining and extractive sectors. Nine out of ten respondents said that NGOs were their most important external stakeholders, with just over half (54%) discussing human rights with governments.
Ruggie, who spoke in August at Berlin’s Hertie School of Governance, a public policy university, said: “The human rights policies [revealed in the survey] are more robust than people give [companies] credit for.” The findings, to be part of Ruggie’s final report due next March, are likely to fuel already existing concerns among NGOs that the UN envoy will not recommend tough, legally based human rights standards for companies. In an interim report published in February, Ruggie rejected as unhelpful a set of UN norms on human rights and business, proposed by a UN sub-commission and backed by many NGOs. Contact Minoo Ghoreishi, KSG 00 1 617 384 7329 www.ksgfaculty.harvard.edu/John_Ruggiewww.business-humanrights.org
Alcan, AREVA join BLIHR
Canadian aluminium and materials company Alcan and French energy company AREVA joined the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights in June, the BLIHR announced. The two companies will work together with the nine other companies towards the principal objective of finding “practical ways of applying the aspirations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights within a business context and to inspire other businesses to do likewise,” the BLIHR said.
In its third annual report, the BLIHR called for a common framework on business and human rights. “We believe that a common framework that identifies the responsibilities of business should embody minimum standards but also examples of performance that are increasingly expected by wider society and can be categorised as ‘expected’ or ‘desirable’, ” the BLIHR said. “Companies which go beyond the legal minimum and make a positive contribution to human rights should also see some form of competitive advantage for their actions.”
The BLIHR believes that some of the most effective and proactive contributions business can make should not be limited or enforced through regulation. Secondly, societal expectations of business will continue to change, thus raising the bar. “‘Expected’ behaviour today could become ‘essential’ behaviour tomorrow. Companies which go beyond the legal minimum and make a positive contribution to human rights should also see some form of competitive advantage for their actions, ” BLIHR said.
Initially a three-year project, the BLIHR was founded in May 2003 by seven companies: ABB, Barclays, MTV Networks Europe, National Grid, Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development, Novo Nordisk and The Body Shop International. During 2004, Hewlett-Packard, Statoil and Gap joined the initiative. Contact John Morrison, BLIHR 07887 684 948; www.blihr.org.; Alexander Christen, Alcan 00 1 514 848 8151 www.alcan.com
Guilty by association
Dutch financial services group ING has rejected calls from pressure groups to exclude companies doing business in Burma from their business portfolio if they do not stop their activities there, according to a letter sent to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s director Chris Avery
ING closed its Burma representative office in 1997 and no longer conducts business or finances projects in that country, but pressure groups have asked the group to broaden its existing policy throughout its portfolio.
The letter followed demands from Belgian social justice campaigners Netwerk Vlaanderen for all companies to stop economic activities in Burma. “We urge the Belgian banks and other investors to end any financial support to companies who refuse to withdraw. We ask you to develop a policy avoiding any future financial links with the companies still active in Burma, ” the group said in a letter to financial services companies in June.
Cohen Stuart, manager of corporate responsibility at ING, wrote to Avery: “After thoughtful consideration, ING considers the requested addition to the current policy not feasible. In the international business environment there are hundreds of companies with some form of relationship with Burma, many of which are large international conglomerates. ING is not able to exclude such an extensive group of companies from its business portfolio”. Stuart referred to the ING Business Principles – its internal code of conduct on social, ethical and environmental behaviour – “we call on all of our 115,000 staff worldwide to respect human rights”. Contact Arnaud Cohen Stuart, ING Group 00 31 20 541 8962 www.ing.com
Net impact
A combination of legislation and a strong industry code of practice are needed to prevent western internet companies complicity in political censorship in China, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report. Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship published on July 10, documents how extensive corporate and private sector co-operation enables censorship.
HRW is urging companies to use all legal means to resist demands for censorship of searches, blogs and web addresses. It says that they should only comply with such demands if they are made via legally binding procedures that can be documented – and after the company has exhausted all reasonable legal means to resist them. HRW believes that the principles should be included in legislation on corporate responsibility.
Meanwhile, UK MPs criticised internet companies Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! for their collaboration with Chinese state censorship of the web. In a report on East Asia published on July 19, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said that western internet companies’ collaboration in the censorship and policing of the internet for political purposes was “morally unacceptable”. Google and Yahoo! are also strongly criticised in a forthcoming report from European MEPs for their “irresponsible policies” for having “bowed directly and indirectly to Chinese government demands for censorship.” Contact HRW 020 7713 1995 www.hrw.org
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