Memorandum submitted by The Danish Institute
of Human Rights, Human Rights & Business Project
INTRODUCTION
1. The Danish Institute for Human Rights
(DIHR, http://humanrights.dk/)
is an independent, national human rights institution modeled in
accordance with the UN Paris Principles. The Institute, which
was established by statute in 2002, pursues a legislative mandate
originally vested in the Danish Centre for Human Rights in 1987.
This encompasses research, education and the implementation of
national and international human rights programmes.
2. Within DIHR, the Human Rights and Business
Project (http://humanrightsbusiness.org/),
which was established in 1999, with the support of the Danish
government (DANIDA), the Confederation of Danish Industries (DI),
and the Danish Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries
(IFU), is a non-profit entity dedicated to promoting business'
compliance with human rights. To this end, the Human Rights and
Business Project undertakes consultancy projects with corporate
partners, develops tools and methodologies to help companies implement
human rights, engages in capacity building partnership projects
with a wide range of public and civil society actors internationally,
and conducts strategic research on concepts of relevance to the
field.
STRATEGIC ADVICE
TO BUSINESS
ON HUMAN
RIGHTS
3. As regards our consultancy work, this
primarily relates to international corporations. The Human Rights
and Business Project is engaged by over a dozen of the Fortune
500 companies, and our approaches and tools have been applied
in more than 200 additional companies, across the extractive,
apparel, agriculture, pharmaceutical and financial sectors. The
Human Rights and Business Project provides advice to a number
of UK-based companies, such as Shell International. The range
of services performed on a consultancy basis includes policy analysis,
for instance, to evaluate internal policies and operating procedures
for human rights compliance, site visits, country risk analysis
and personnel training, for example, focusing on specific issues
or functions (such as security).
TOOLS AND
METHODOLOGIES FOR
BUSINESS AND
HUMAN RIGHTS
4. A key resource for our consultancy work
is the Human Rights Compliance Assessment (HRCA, see further,
https://hrca.humanrightsbusiness.org/). This tool, which takes
the form of an online database, was developed over a six-year
period in cooperation with 70 companies, 50 NGOs, 35 human
rights experts and several major employer organisations and trade
unions, across 14 European countries. The development process
was engineered to ensure that the standards and indicators produced
accurately embodied the relevant human rights law standards while
also reflecting on-the-ground business realities. The HRCA is
the most comprehensive and in-depth tool available for companies
to check their performance on human rights. Using the HRCA, corporate
managers or compliance officers can scrutinise company operations
and policies, and benchmark company performance against a set
of indicators based on more than 80 international human rights
conventions and covering all internationally-recognised human
rights. Currently over 500 businesses and other organizations
in 59 countries around the world are currently registered
users of one or more modules of the HRCA. Versions of the HRCA
tailored to specific countries (eg South Africa, China), industry
sectors, and human rights issues (eg company dormitories) have
been developed, often in collaboration with local civil society
and business partners. A number of further such adaptations are
in development.
5. Currently the HRCA is being updated and
reformatted, to incorporate feedback from company and institutional
users worldwide, as well as developments in the business and human
rights field since its inception. To be launched in August 2009,
HRCA 2.0 will include facilities for individualization to
each company user, according to industrial sector and geographical
location of its operations, country risk matching (see further
below) an incorporation of the tool into company IT platforms.
6. In addition, the Human Rights and Business
Project's HRCA Quick Check (available at http://humanrightsbusiness.org/?f=compliance_assessment
) is a free of charge, condensed version of the full HRCA tool.
The result of collaboration with a group of development finance
institutes, the Quick Check includes approximately 10% of the
questions contained in the HRCA database. Using it, companies
can generate an overview of human rights risks across their operations.
7. A further project currently underway,
in partnership with the Confederation of Danish Industries (DI)
and the Danish Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries
(IFU), is the adaptation of the HRCA to generate a self-assessment
tool for businesses with regard to the United Nations Global Compact's
10 Principles. When complete, this will result in a further
free of charge tool for business, which will be made available
via the UN Global Compact website.
8. Country Risk Assessments are another
type of service provided to business by the Human Rights and Business
Project. One insight acquired through 10 years' experience
of working directly with the private sector is that understanding
human rights risks in the context of the local operating environment
is a key step in ensuring that company activities are compatible
with the interests and needs of all local groups. Business actors'
implication in human rights abuses can result from inadequate
or ineffective legal regimes, weak standards or practices locally.
The Human Rights and Business Project's Country Risk Assessments
thus provide country-, region—and right-specific human rights
information, with a focus on those risks and issues of greatest
relevance to company operations. Based on the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, constitutional and other provisions of national
law, the Country Risk Assessment examines the likelihood of violations
of each enumerated human right. Every right is rated high, medium
or low risk according to the incidence and severity of violations
reported and their likely proximity to companies. This evaluation
is accompanied by due diligence recommendations for company personnel
on how to prevent their own involvement in human rights abuses
as well as how to mitigate the risk of complicity in human rights
violations by third parties. High-risk issues—such as child
labour, forced labour, discrimination or poor working conditions—are
compiled into detailed Focal Areas to assist companies in focusing
their management efforts.
CAPACITY BUILDING
ON BUSINESS
AND HUMAN
RIGHTS
9. The Human Rights and Business Project's
international capacity building work has the objective of improving
compliance with human rights standards of companies operating
in developing countries, by promoting the capacity of local National
Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and NGOs to address human rights
and business issues in the local context, while also strengthening
cooperation and dialogue between local human rights groups and
business leaders concerning corporate responsibility and human
rights. Capacity building initiatives thus follow a partnership
model. Local partners for collaboration and cooperation are first
identified from amongst local human rights groups, business leaders
or confederations, trade unions, universities and, if possible,
host state governments. This is followed by training and capacity
building of a local "focal point" for business and human
rights issues, and awareness-raising through roundtables, seminars
and training. A locally-adapted Human Rights Compliance Assessment
may then be produced, including identification of high-risk human
rights issues, new questions and indicators based on these risks,
and contextualization with respect to relevant national and local
legislative provisions. Locally-tailored versions of the HRCA
tool can then be run through a pilot implementation process, where
companies in cooperation with human rights NGOs test the tool
in their operations, with feedback incorporated into a final version.
NHRIS AND
THE BUSINESS
AND HUMAN
RIGHTS AGENDA
10. Our involvement in the formation of
an International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights
Institutions' Working Group on Business and Human Rights has recently
added to a further strand to our capacity building work. In July
2008, the Danish Institute for Human Rights hosted in Copenhagen
a Roundtable meeting of National Human Rights Institutions on
Business and Human Rights. Fifteen National Human Rights Institutions,
in addition to DIHR, were represented at the Roundtable (Canada,
Kenya, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Norway,
the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Venezuela).
11. The Roundtable concluded that National
Human Rights Institutions are uniquely placed to address the challenge
of securing business' compliance with human rights in the context
of global economic integration. Accordingly, it was agreed that
National Human Rights Institutions ought to increase their focus
on the human rights impacts of business operations as an element
of their mandates, in concurrence with views stated by the United
Nations' Secretary General's Special Representative on Business
and Human Rights in his report submitted in July 2008 to
the United Nations Human Rights Council. In its concluding Report
(http://www.humanrightsbusiness.org/files/320569722/file/final_nhri_hrb_
roundtable_report .pdf , the Roundtable recommended the establishment
of an International Co-Ordinating Committee (ICC) Working Group
on Business and Human Rights. It also outlined current and potential
future activities for NHRIs, first, in Strengthening Government
Protection of Human Rights in the Corporate Sector and second,
in Promoting Human Rights in the Corporate Sector.
12. That recommendation was taken up by
the ICC during 2008, leading to the formation of a Steering Committee,
comprising four NHRIs, to develop proposals for the formation
of an ICC Working Group on Business and Human Rights. The Danish
Institute for Human Rights was Co-ordinator of the Steering Committee,
which developed proposals for the constitution of an ICC Working
Group on Human Rights and its programme of work. On the basis
of these proposals, the ICC decided by consensus at its meeting
in March 2009, to establish a Business and Human Rights Working
Group.
13. The ICC's four world regions have now
each selected two of their member NHRIs to participate in the
Business and Human Rights Working Group, so that the following
will be represented: Denmark, Jordan, Kenya, Nicaragua, Scotland,
South Korea, Togo and Venezuela. Canada, ex officio as
the current Chair of the ICC, will also participate. The Working
Group's first meeting will be held in Copenhagen in August 2009,
to be hosted by DIHR. It is anticipated that, during this first
meeting, a strategy and programme of work will be devised for
the ICC Working Group on Business and Human Rights.
14. Discussions at that meeting will be
informed by the Report of the 2008 Roundtable of NHRIs on
Business and Human Rights, already mentioned above, as well as
the report of the Side-Event to the 11th Session of the Human
Rights Council, held on 5 June 2009 and organized by
the ICC and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
"Engaging NHRIs in securing the promotion and protection
of human rights in business". Comments made at this event,
concerning the role of NHRIs regarding business and human rights
and challenges for NHRIs in fulfilling this mandate, by Ms. Claire
Methven O'Brien of the Human Rights and Business Project of the
Danish Institute for Human Rights, by Lene Wenland of OHCHR, Commissioner
Florence Simbiri-Jaoko of the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission,
Ms. Myriam Montrat of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and
Mr. Chris Avery, of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre,
are available at www.business-humanrights.org.
These presentations highlight the ongoing work by NHRIs across
a number of jurisdictions, in both the global north and south,
to promote compliance with human rights by corporate actors. This
work spans, for example, efforts to address emergent issues arising
from the growth in multi-national enterprises, and their activities,
for example in Export Processing Zones (as in Kenya), as well
as NHRIs historically well-established role in adjudicating or
providing a forum for alternative dispute resolution, for example,
in relation to claims of discrimination in employment.
STRATEGIC RESEARCH
15. A fourth and final limb of the Human
Rights and Business Project's work on business and human rights
contributes to the development of the field's conceptual framework
through strategic research. Responding to the widely accepted
need for greater clarity in relation to the definition of the
scope and content of companies' human rights obligations to various
stakeholders, research findings are communicated through a range
of publications. Some of these, such as The Arc of Human Rights
Priorities: A new model for Managing Business Risk, produced in
conjunction with the UN Global Compact, and available at http://www.humanrightsbusiness.org/files/11111/file/arc_of_human_rights_priorities__road_
testing_version__1_june.pdf, and our series of Due Diligence Maps
for Business (available at http://humanrightsbusiness.org/?f=publications
), are created specifically for companies as guides to help them
identify and address their responsibilities for human rights accurately
and effectively. Other publications contribute to enhancing understanding
of the business and human rights field more broadly, for instance,
through in-depth consideration of specific issues raised in individual
national contexts, such as the need to establish company level
workers' representative mechanisms in jurisdictions where the
right to freedom of association and collective bargaining may
be curtailed by national law.
CONCLUSION
16. The Human Rights and Business Project
of the Danish Institute for Human Rights welcomes the Joint Committee's
Inquiry on Business and Human Rights. While activities conducted
under the mandate of the United Nations Special Representative
on Business and Human Rights are making an important contribution
to debate at the international level concerning the definition
of an appropriate conceptual and legal framework to address business'
now undoubted responsibilities to comply with human rights standards,
real and concrete progress demands that this is now supported
by strong engagement on the part of the executive, legislative
and judicial branches of individual states—both North and
South. Furthermore, as indicated in this submission, National
Human Rights Institutions also have a key role to play, not only
in their traditional role as a monitor of state action (though
this remains important, and should be interpreted as extending
to issues relevant to the business and human rights agenda) but
also through programmes of work focused directly on business actors,
and the human rights risks which they inevitably encounter domestically
and, in the context of today's trans-nationally integrated economic
system, also extraterritorially.
June 2009
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