Can voluntary initiatives on human rights really ensure that workers are not exploited, and labour standards upheld, or is government regulation the only way forward?
Taking action on human rights is central to any discussion of corporate responsibility. The fundamentals are clear – companies must take rigorous steps to prevent abuses such as child labour, forced or bonded labour. They should pay a fair wage and provide safe working conditions. They must avoid exploiting weak or non-existent labour laws that prevent collective action or violate workers rights.
Despite these fundamentals, one aspect of the debate remains contentious – the extent to which a company’s responsibility extends. Clearly any individual company will want to ensure the proper treatment of all its employees, contractors and associates. These responsibilities will naturally extend to those workers in the first tier of the supply chain. The question becomes, how far down the supply chain can individual businesses be held accountable?
The typical supply chain of any high street product is often long and complex. Discerning consumers are increasingly concerned about every aspect of the production process. Large UK manufacturers and retailers will need to take action across the whole supply chain – issues of traceability and accountability will become of paramount importance. Whether the answer lies with voluntary frameworks or regulatory standards is of less concern to consumers. They are demanding reassurance that all those involved in the production of the goods they buy are working free from exploitation.
RELATED NEWS
Filling the gap
Many countries are failing to protect the human rights of their civilians, according to Harvard Professor John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights. Presenting his final report on the relationship between business and human rights to the UN Human Rights Council on March 28, he said that multinational companies can help overcome this through voluntary human rights initiatives. However, Ruggie stressed that binding international standards are needed for human rights abuses to be addressed most effectively.
The main points of his report – Business and Human Rights: Mapping International Standards of Responsibility and Accountability for Corporate Acts – are:
Ruggie expresses frustration over failing to find legally binding international human rights standards that apply directly to corporations;
An examination of so-called “soft law” mechanisms, such as multi-stakeholder voluntary initiatives. He cites three as representing best practice: the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; the Kimberly Process and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. Ruggie believes that human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) in the extractive sector do generally promote human rights, but these self-regulation schemes lack accountability;
Ruggie suggests that voluntary initiatives are drawing a blueprint of the architecture for binding standards, “As they strengthen their accountability mechanisms, they also begin to blur the lines between the strictly voluntary and mandatory spheres for participants”;
SRI funds “strongly promote human rights impact assessments” coupled with community engagement and dialogue. However, relatively few firms conduct these assessments routinely and only a handful seem ever to have done a fully fledged human rights impact assessment (HRIA), one being BP Tangguh LNG Project for BP Indonesia;
Voluntary initiatives exhibit four additional blind spots, according to Ruggie: they currently do not apply to small and medium-sized enterprises; or to developing country firms; or to state-owned enterprises in emerging economies; and determined laggards find ways to avoid scrutiny.
Ruggie ends the report by noting that he would welcome a one-year extension to complete the assignment and that he would “continue to hold transparent consultations with all stakeholders during this process”.
Senior business leaders stated that business “cannot do it alone” and that, even though voluntary initiatives are important, regulatory frameworks are ultimately needed if new responsible, sustainable and inclusive business models are to be developed.
Speaking at a press meeting hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development on May 9 in London, signatories of the Statement of Intent for Doing Business with the World, which was reported on in issue 92 of Briefing (February/March 2007), discussed the need for dialogue with civil society as well as governments. They stated that the Statement of Intent was an invitation to other business and non-business organisations to take action.
The business leaders did concede that voluntary initiatives were essential in countries where governments are unstable, notably Zimbabwe. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, of Anglo American, added that voluntary multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as the Global Compact and the Statement of Intent, are very important when doing business in such circumstances as it means businesses can engage with civil society and drive change forward without having to involve the government.
The meeting, attended by Briefing, included Julio Moura, chairman and CEO of GrupoNueva, Alan Harper, executive director and group strategy director of Vodafone, Dr Robin Bidwell, executive chairman of ERM, and Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of Anglo American.
A new e-learning tool has been launched to help companies understand what human rights are and how they are relevant to their business activities. Produced by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in consultation with the Global Compact , the tool is aimed at corporate responsibility professionals in companies and is comprised of links, exercises and case studies.
Child labour is still rife in the cocoa industry in West Africa, according to a report by the BBC, which found children working on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast.
The report – Bitter Sweet – by Humphrey Hawksley, which was broadcasted on March 29, found that children were being forced to work on the farms despite chocolate companies signing the Cocoa Protocol in 2001. The protocol brings together industry, West African governments, organised labour, NGOs and farmer groups in an attempt to eliminate child labour and forced adult labour from the cocoa supply chain. The protocol led to the establishment of the International Cocoa Initiative, which has corporate members including Mars, Hershey Foods, Cadbury Schweppes and Nestlé.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have called on the companies to undertake an overview of their cocoa supply chain to ensure that children are not used in the farming of the product. The UK is the highest consumer of chocolate per person in Europe and the global market for cocoa is valued at $5.1bn annually.
COMMENTS