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John Morrison
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Kathryn Dovey
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A “human rights and business framework” can mean different things to different people. There is the legal framework based on international human rights treaties and declarations, and the attempts made to make these relevant, understandable and accessible to a business audience. And there is the practical framework, which takes a standard management system model and incorporates human rights into this business-friendly approach.
A poster produced jointly by the UN Global Compact Office, the International Business Leaders Forum, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR), took on the task of building the second framework1. This poster which is based on content from two longer publications2, takes seven elements of a management system (based on the Global Compact Performance model) and lists ideas around how companies might be thinking about human rights within that aspect of their business. The main idea behind this tool is that human rights within a business context is about all core business operations and functions. It needs to resonate within a business’ strategy, policies and processes for it to be truly integrated.
Wider debate
After the polemics of the arguments around the UN Draft Norms on Business and Human Rights proposed by the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in 2003, a “human rights framework” can have a wider meaning than the practical tool presents.
BLIHR called for a “common framework” at the end of 2006 and this requires the framework to have a number of features:
- It is multi-stakeholder. It is not just a business tool with no acceptance by other stakeholders, nor is a purely academic or governmental exercise which sits remotely from business realities.
- It is universal. The framework needs to embody all business sectors and also all geographic regions and localities.
- And finally, it is neither purely legal nor purely voluntary in nature. It straddles both the “essential” requirements of national law (and some levelling up to international norms as required) and also goes “beyond essential” to encompass good and best practice by business.
The word “common” embodies several key dimensions which have been core to the BLIHR project. These are also concepts that are true to human rights themselves and which resonate with the words of Eleanor Roosevelt spoken 60 years ago when she called for human rights to be recognized “insmall places, close to home” – very much including the workplace. It is ironic perhaps that with economic globalization, the workplace is a much bigger place than it was in 1948.
It might be put forward that business has no interest in such a framework. That it is much better served by sector-specific tools built on its sphere of influence. Indeed, many of the best business and human rights tools, even those with cross-sector utility, can be dramatically enhanced if sector-specific versions are also brought to market. It could be argued that most of the human rights impact assessment models currently used by business are hard-wired for the extractive sector (focusing significantly on operations and security for example) or the supply chain tools for the apparel sector (focusing on the ILO standards most relevant to industries where price margins and overtime are real issues). However, whilst such sector-specific tools (now also under development in the IT, Finance, Pharmaceutical and other sectors) are essential, they do not cancel out the need for a common framework as the overarching umbrella under which they fit. Rather, they supplement this concept.
The common framework offers, in addition:
- A complete overview of the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all that has flowed from it. It is not for a business or a specific business sector to arbitrarily pick and choose between which human rights they think are material to their sector – this needs to be demonstrated.
- There is much need for cross-fertilisation. Whilst supply chain management might be a prime concern for the apparel sector, it does not mean that issues such as community impact assessment or the use of private or public security are irrelevant. Businesses and stakeholders alike can benefit from drawing in the good practice from other sectors.
A second criticism is that a common framework should not mix the mandatory and the voluntary. For a long time this has been the official position of the European Union’s approach to CSR: that CSR is only that which is not law across the 27 member states. This approach of maintaining a framework which is purely voluntary is understandable in situations where adequate laws exist and these laws are adequately enforced across all jurisdictions. If we take this globally, then the idea that a common framework on business on human rights should only contain that which is voluntary is highly unrealistic.
There are a few key points to bear in mind on the topic of mandatory vs. voluntary:
- Whilst the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been accepted by all members of the United Nations, there are discrepancies in the ratifications of human rights treaties which have followed. For example, even the most ratified of all, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, has not been ratified by two member states: Somalia and the USA.
- Even if Conventions are widely ratified, this does not mean that the benchmarks for what is required from business are clear. Even if we take a clear-cut issue, the 1930 ILO Convention Against Forced Labour (an issue of direct responsibility for business leaders under criminal law), business still struggles to understand where the thresholds lie on related issues such as mandatory overtime or the use of recruitment agencies, given that national legislation and practice varies across many countries.
- What is voluntary today in one country might become mandatory tomorrow. We do not want to develop an international framework that freezes out developments in specific countries.3
A common framework which embodies both the “essential” and “beyond essential” elements allows both the reality and the spirit of international law to be kept in play.
In conclusion, whilst a common framework should remain the umbrella for all our endeavours, we should not underestimate the task ahead. Professor John Ruggie, UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, has recently brought both the concepts of the state’s duty to protect human rights and a business’ responsibility to respect human rights into the discussion. This is indeed a useful distinction, as is a better understanding of the principles that sit behind a rights-based approach. With time, a common framework will need to engender a pluralism of approaches – both legalistic and business pragmatic – that will begin to populate what might be seen as the level playing field of essential standards, as well as the marketplace of tools such as the human rights framework that deliver understandings and ideas of good practice within day-to-day business decision making.
