Memorandum submitted by UNICEF
1. INTRODUCTION
UNICEF UK is pleased to submit this document
in response to the call for evidence by the Joint Committee on
Human Rights as part of its enquiry into Business and Human Rights.
UNICEF is the world's leading organisation working
for children and their rights. We work with families, local communities,
partners and governments in 193 countries to help every child
realise their full potential. UNICEF UK is one of 36 UNICEF
National Committees based in industrialised countries. Part of
our work in the UK is to champion children's rights and advocate
for lasting change. This document reflects this focus of UNICEF
UK's work, and relates it to the three focal areas of the Committee's
enquiry.
2. THE DUTY
OF THE
STATE TO
PROTECT HUMAN
RIGHTS
Having ratified the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) the UK is obliged to do all it
can to ensure that children and young people in the UK enjoy the
highest attainable standards of health, safety and well-being.
The CRC is often not incorporated into discussions
on the relationship between companies and human rights. This is
a serious omission. Children's rights, as outlined in the CRC,
are often directly affected by corporate activity. Yet children
themselves usually cannot influence company or government decisions
and are in many ways dependent on adults. This leaves children
especially vulnerable to exploitation and human rights abuses.
For example, British children are increasingly exposed to media
activity. Research conducted by the Family and Parenting Institute
shows that young children are more easily influenced than adults
by commercial pressures. This can violate children's right to
reliable information,[572]
as they may not always understand the messages contained in the
mass media.
Specific areas of particular concern to UNICEF
UK relate to child pornography, climate change and child labour.
Child Pornography
The criminalisation of child pornography is
still subject to governance gaps, despite sexual exploitation
being an enormously harmful violation of children's rights. In
the UK the Protection of Children Act 1978 and the Criminal
Justice and Immigration Act 2008 address visual and Internet
related child pornography, however, British Internet service providers
currently self-regulate under the coordination of the NGO "Internet
Watch Foundation" and this remains controversial. Despite
its stating in 2006 that it would make UK internet providers
face up to their responsibilities, should 100% sign up not be
realised, little has been done by the UK Government to improve
the situation. This has left the children's charities to call
upon Government to ensure that this target is reached. Further
to this, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communication launched
an enquiry in April 2009, investigating the effectiveness of the
current approach to child sexual abuse images. Effective action
is needed and must be led by government.
Climate Change
An area requiring further attention is the relationship
between human induced climate change and its impact on human rights.
Of particular concern are the rights of children, who will be
the most negatively affected by the consequences of greenhouse
gas emissions and natural resource consumption of their predecessors.
For example, children's right to food (CRC Article 24) is directly
impacted by climate change and its effect on agricultural productivity.
Violation of this right can impair physical and mental growth
at a critical stage of a child development leading to life long
disability. Article 24 of the CRC outlines the UK government's
commitment to protect children's rights to life, health and a
clean environment.
Child Labour
Of particular concern to UNICEF UK is the health
and safety of children working in corporate supply chains. Mining
and agriculture are the two industries causing the most fatalities
globally. Child workers in the cotton industry, which uses 75%
of the world's pesticides, are particularly exposed to serious
health risks. This is because children are twice as vulnerable
to the negative effects of pesticides as adults, due to their
greater skin/body ratio and deeper inhalation rates. Through the
CRC the UK Government has not only committed itself to ensuring
that children and young people have a right to life, health and
a clean environment within its own national borders, but also
to assist developing countries in achieving the same for their
young citizens.[573]
Furthermore, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights outlines
the universal right to "just and favourable conditions of
work".[574]
3. THE RESPONSIBILITY
OF BUSINESS
TO RESPECT
HUMAN RIGHTS
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls
upon every individual and every organ of society to protect and
promote human rights. This includes the responsibility of business
to respect Human Rights.
UK legislation in the fields of labour, environment
and health and safety offers considerable protection from corporate
human rights abuses at the national level. However, in developing
countries, where states may exercise weak or no influence over
the negative impacts of corporate activities, there may be little
incentive for firms to actively engage with the fundamental rights
of their stakeholders. Moreover, in some poorer countries enterprises
enjoy a higher degree of structural power than the national government,
which renders State sovereignty moot.[575]
The fact that that the world's top 200 corporations have
been estimated to control a quarter of the world's productive
assets[576]
is a strong indication of the structural power enjoyed by business
in the global political economy. So the regulation of UK based
multinational companies by the UK Government is needed to ensure
that they respect children's rights.
The current plethora of voluntary codes of conduct
and best practice certification schemes in the broader field of
corporate responsibility may suggest that private actors are independently
living up to their social and environmental responsibilities.[577]
However, the inherent weakness of such soft law lies in its voluntary
nature, which ultimately renders labeling and certification initiatives
unenforceable. Although UNICEF UK welcomes the contribution of
some labeling initiatives to raising the profile of child protection
issues as well as their intentions to promote sustainable development,
they do not always achieve positive results on the ground. A Fair
Trade labeled product, for example, does not ensure that child
labour has been excluded from the supply chain. Monitoring of
long supply chains remains problematic and local capacity and
resources to adequately enforce Fair Trade standards are often
lacking. In sum, labeling initiatives alone do not ensure that
UK businesses respect human rights, as their effectiveness is
dependant upon enterprises pro-actively living up to (sometimes
costly) extra-legal obligations. Voluntary schemes must therefore
be reinforced by government legislation.
The UK Government should work to encourage the
protection of children's rights abroad and at home by publicly
endorsing sound corporate responsibility initiatives. The UK government
can contribute to fostering a culture of respect for Human Rights
through its public procurement strategies. The existing UK Government's
Sustainable Procurement Action Plan specifically focuses on delivering
targets related to environmental sustainability. However, this
Action Plan should be extended to incorporate a more comprehensive
approach to sustainable development, including Human Rights obligations.
UNICEF UK, for example, demands that its partners actively include
the CRC in their risk assessments and due diligence processes.
In line with this, supply chains must be re-visited through a
protection lens and vulnerabilities mapped. Failure to do so risks
complicity.
The current global economic crisis has shown
the need for government intervention in the economy. Many children's
rights advocates, including UNICEF UK, therefore expect increased
government regulation in the future, as well as a heightened acceptance
of the need to embed ethics within incentive structures. Improved
risk assessment and due diligence processes from the side of private
enterprise are also needed.
UNICEF UK recommends mandatory corporate social
and environmental reporting by all British based Transnational
Corporations (TNCs), in order to deliver transparency and increase
pressure to improve their social and environmental performance.
4. EFFECTIVE
ACCESS TO
REMEDIES
Prof John Ruggie's mapping of 400 public
allegations against businesses, to which already vulnerable people
often fall victim, highlights the extent to which effective remedies
are lacking in this context.[578]
In line with its obligations under the CRC, the UK Government
must provide separate legal representation for a child in any
judicial dispute concerning their care. However, when seeking
remedies for violations of their rights, particularly at the hands
of private enterprises, children encounter significant difficulties
in using the judicial system. The fact that there are limited
organisations mandated to protect children's rights further aggravates
this problem.
Children and those working with them must be
able to report Human Rights violations inflicted upon them by
companies in order to access remedies. Children must be enabled
to monitor and report on violations of their rights. This requires
targeted documents and processes to be made accessible to children
and young people. Such measures are still lacking despite the
UK Government's obligation to fulfill the right to freedom of
expression.[579]
In line with this, UNICEF UK recommends that the four UK Children's
Commissioners be part of a future monitoring process of the impacts
of UK companies on children's rights.
572 CRC, Article 17 Back
573
CRC, Article 24 Back
574
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23 Back
575
This is for example the case for tobacco companies in Malawi Back
576
See note by the UN Secretary General, The Right to Food, 28 August
2003 Back
577
E.g. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, The United
Nations Global Compact as well as schemes managed by the International
Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Labour
Organisation (ILO). Back
578
Reported in 11th Session Human Rights Council 22nd April 2009 Back
579
CRC, Article 12 Back
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