Companies, large and small, are increasingly coming to understand their responsibilities and accountabilities to all stakeholders – not just investors and customers, but also civil society and the environment. Understanding human rights responsibility and accountability is very much still a work in progress, and there continue to be many grey areas for companies: What are they expected to do in their operations and where? Should governments be in the driving seat? What constitutes complicity in human rights abuses and what can companies realistically be expected to influence? What human rights materials and methodologies should businesses employ to ensure best practice?

Professor John Ruggie was appointed as United Nations Special Representative for Business and Human Rights in 2005 with a view to clarifying some of these key issues. Ron Popper, Head of Corporate Responsibility at ABB, the global electrical-engineering group, asked him about the progress of his work for the Compact Quarterly.

John Ruggie

John Ruggie is Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law, and the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Business and Human Rights. While serving as Kofi Annan's Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning, he was the co-architect of the Global Compact.

What is it that you have been asked to do and by whom? 

In 2005, the then United Nations Human Rights Commission requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative (SRSG) with a mandate to do the following:

(a) To identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights;
(b) To elaborate on the role of States in effectively regulating and adjudicating the role of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights, including through international cooperation;
(c) To research and clarify the implications for transnational corporations and other business enterprises of concepts such as “complicity” and “sphere of influence”;
(d) To develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments of the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises;
(e) To compile a compendium of best practices of States and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

The mandate also requested the SRSG to provide “views and recommendations” in relation to these issues for consideration by the Commission. The Secretary-General appointed me as the SRSG in July 2005. Since then, I have reported twice, first to the then Commission on Human Rights in March 2006 (E.CN.4.2006/96), and the second time to the Human Rights Council (which replaced the Commission) in March 2007, where I presented two reports and four addenda (A/HRC/4/35 with addenda 1-4 and A/HRC/4/76). My final report in the current phase of the mandate will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2008 (see advance edited version of the report at: http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/965591).

Can you give us an early indication of what your recommendations will be?

During the extensive consultations we’ve conducted, every stakeholder group, despite their other differences, has expressed the urgent need for a common conceptual and policy framework, a foundation on which thinking and action can build. Drawing on the mandate’s work in its first two years, I introduced the elements of such a framework in multi-stakeholder consultations during the autumn of 2007.
 
The framework rests on differentiated but complementary responsibilities. It comprises three core principles: the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for more effective access to remedies. The three principles form a complementary whole in that each supports the others in achieving sustainable progress. My views and recommendations to states and other relevant social actors will be based on this framework.

You have had widespread consultations in different parts of the globe with a wide variety of stakeholders. How difficult is it going to be to obtain buy-in to your recommendations from different stakeholders, such as business and NGOs? Governments?

Since my appointment as SRSG in July 2005, I have endeavored to conduct all aspects of the work in a transparent and inclusive manner. I have convened 14 multi-stakeholder consultations on five continents, several with NGO partners as co-conveners; conducted more than two-dozen research projects, some with the assistance of global law firms and other legal experts, non-governmental organizations, international institutions, and committed individuals; produced more than 1,000 pages of documents; and received some 20 unsolicited submissions. All reports and submissions, as well as any response from me, have been posted on the mandate’s website, kindly hosted by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (http://www.business-humanrights.org/Gettingstarted/UNSpecialRepresentative).

All along, I have also maintained close contact with Governments in the Human Rights Council and kept them regularly updated about the progress of the mandate. While this extensive process has been hugely beneficial in informing my thinking as SRSG, I believe it has also served to engage different stakeholders in our work, and has contributed to a more broadly shared understanding of the issues relating to business and human rights, as well as to more constructive approaches to addressing the problems. Indeed, when I outlined the three principles of the framework during consultations in 2007, I was very pleased with the broad acceptance it received from all stakeholders. However, I will only know for sure in the coming months, especially during the discussions with the Council in June, how successful our efforts have been.

What are biggest obstacles you have run up against so far in the mandate? And are they still problematic?

The sheer intellectual magnitude of the task has been the most daunting challenge. Every right, every sector, every company, every continent, every country—the mandate encompasses them all. And the final report has a 10,700 word limit! This has been no easy task.

You slayed the UN Draft Norms at an early stage of your mandate. Does the content, if not the document, still feature strongly in your deliberations?

I wouldn’t describe what I did as “slaying.” I gave the UN Draft Norms a very close and detailed reading, and they came up short in ways that I found were irreparable—for reasons I’ve elaborated in my reports to the Council, and also in an article I published in the American Journal of International Law. It made no sense, therefore, for me to try to “build” my mandate on this foundation of quicksand, as some had asked me to do. In fact, my recommendations will be broader in scope than the UN Draft Norms by covering the full range of international recognized human rights. But I focus in greater detail on the more difficult question of what precise responsibilities companies have in relation to rights. While corporations may be considered “organs of society,” they are specialized economic organs, not democratic public interest institutions. As such, their responsibilities cannot and should not simply mirror states’ duties, as the draft Norms would have had it. Accordingly, I identified the distinctive responsibilities of companies in relation to human rights, and how they can discharge those responsibilities.  

Assuming your recommendations are welcomed by business in general, how do you expect company managers to behave differently once they have absorbed your findings?

Business managers will have a clearer sense of their responsibilities vis-a-vis human rights, and of the operational steps they need to take to discharge those responsibilities. This mandate has sought, above all, to identify practical solutions to critically important problems.

Ron Popper

Ron Popper is a former journalist who worked in different parts of the world before joining electrical engineering group ABB in 2001. Ron, who is British, has worked for the last two years as head of Corporate Responsibility, and is also actively involved in a number of external initiatives including the UN Global Compact and the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights.