Embedding Human Rights in Business Practice II

The Global Compact Office and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have announced the release of the second edition in the Embedding Human Rights in Business Practice series. The publication features 20 case studies from Global Compact signatories around the world.

Among the companies profiled are: ABB, Achilles, Anglogold Ashanti, AREVA, Barloworld, BASF, Eskom, Ipek Kagit, Ketchum, MAS Holdings, Newmont Mining Corporation, NIKE Inc, Novartis, Sasol, Royal Dutch Shell, Starbucks, Titan Industries, Volkswagen and Westpac Banking Corporation.

Inadequate integration of human rights law - the need for additional risk management

The risks associated with financing projects can vary significantly according to the geographical location of the project. While many projects that the banks are asked to consider financing are in compliance with national legislation and permit requirements, they may fall short of international standards and best practice. A detailed understanding of the project’s political and legal framework is required in order to judge the extent to which national requirements meet the risk management needs of international financial organisations.

Use, misuse and abuse of human rights rhetoric: the case of Serbia

National application of human rights law is one of the most important tests of its efficacy. This article examines the integration of international human rights law into Serbia’s legal system. The paper argues that the use of human rights language does not necessarily indicate the proper and correct use of human rights norms

The paper covers the following:

• an overview on the intersection of international and national law with special reference to Serbia and Montenegro
• the existing legal framework for the integration of international human rights law
• an examination of the propriety of human rights law language discourse
• a discussion on the separation of the executive and the judiciary

The paper makes the following conclusions:

• the legislative framework in Serbia favours the integration of human rights law
• despite some successes there some legislative acts and a lack of human right jurisprudence indicates that international human rights law has not been properly integrated into the legal system
• there has been a misuse of human rights law and clash between judicial and political discourse on human rights
• the inadequate training of the judiciary has led to judicial deference to the executive branch of government.

Outlining the labour components of the revised Equator Principles

Extract from ELDIS: Ergon / Ergon , 2006

This briefing paper outlines the labour components of the revised Equator principles - Equator II - to assist signatories, their clients and other stakeholders in understanding the new requirements. It introduces the new Equator Principles, which are based on a revised version of IFC Performance Standards - provisions on labour standards and provides an overview of the issues financial institutions must now address. It also suggests some steps they must take to operationalise the new requirements.Until now, the labour component of the IFC policies referenced by the Equator Principles has been limited to occupational health and safety and avoidance of harmful child labour and forced labour. The new IFC Performance Standard 2 (PS2), covers a range of new issues such as non-discrimination, freedom of association and non-employee workers, and also introduces a new set of processes that must be followed.Highlights of the PS2 include: there must be a human resources policy covering terms and conditions and other rights at work all employees must be informed of their terms and conditions and entitlements collective bargaining agreements must be respected, or if not in place, terms and conditions of work must be reasonable and, at minimum, comply with local law the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining must be respected if rights to freedom of association are restricted in law, clients will enable alternative means for the expression of worker rights projects must not use forced labour projects must not employ children in economically exploitative or hazardous ways, and national laws must be complied with if a significant number of jobs will be lost a retrenchment plan must be drawn up based on non-discrimination and consultation there should be a confidential grievance mechanism workers must be provided with a healthy working environment sub-contracted workers are covered by most of these provisions The brief argues that the new Equator Principles have the potential to improve conditions for many workers, but the procedures required for assessing risk and the issues that must be considered will be unfamiliar to most private sector banks - as will the possibility of engaging with wider stakeholders, such as trade unions.

Companies find it difficult to Report on Human Rights Issues - bespoke solutions are needed

Company reporting on human rights issues - SustainAbility, 2006 The study examines company reporting on human rights issues. It explores the expectations of stakeholders with regard to corporate reporting on human rights, investigates trends in reporting around specific human rights issues, examines the current state of corporate reporting on human rights, and provides a framework for companies to use to review their current and future approach to reporting on human rights. In order to do so the study analysed reports from 35 companies.

Findings of the study include

• it is difficult to set specific reporting indicators against which all companies should report; instead, stakeholders stated that human rights risks depend upon the company’s operating context at the local level and that reporting should be tailored to account for context-specific concerns and issues
• while each company must undertake its own human rights risk assessment, stakeholders acknowledged that there are some common risks and related stakeholder expectations within industries
• while many companies explained that their management systems for human rights have been in place for some time, most started reporting on their performance externally only in the past few years
• the breadth of reporting on human rights has expanded beyond some of the primary issues such as diversity and workplace issues
• the depth of reporting is moving beyond policy statements and codes of conduct to performance data and results
• the number of industries reporting on human rights has increased
• here is more location-specific reporting
• the comparability across company reports is slowly increasing
• however, there is still relatively little reporting on human rights compared to other issues commonly discussed in sustainability reports
• the most commonly cited audience for human rights reporting information was the socially responsible investment (SRI) community, and in addition, there appears to be increasing interest from mainstream investors, particularly with regards to risk management

Based on these findings the study develops a framework to help companies increase their transparency and accountability with respect to human rights. Original article in Eldis.