Photo by Tom Fisk
New Tactics and ESCR-Net hosted this conversation on Corporate Accountability Beyond Borders. While governments are the primary duty-bearers for upholding human rights, businesses can have disproportionate impacts on all human rights. Business in all economic sectors, everywhere, support or undercut domestic government actions.
Corporations around the globe are turning increasingly more transnational. Aspects of their production occur in countries different from their origin/headquarters. International law endows states with the ability to use their jurisdiction to prevent/protect against human rights violations committed by third parties within their territory. In this conversation, practitioners discussed legal as well as non-judicial tactics. These tactics can be used to hold companies, based in their home-country, accountable for abuses they commit abroad.
This online conversation shared experiences using extraterritorial avenues for justice. This included preventing, punishing and providing remedy for business-related human rights abuses. Obstacles and challenges faced by practitioners shared some important victories. Legal and policy justifications were shared for extending human rights protection beyond borders. We hope that this conservation will serve as a resource for frontline communities, human rights practitioners, legal experts, governments, businesses and other stakeholders in filling the gap in the active protection of human rights.
Role of Governments and Corporations in Upholding Human Rights
As business operations and potential impacts have moved beyond borders, some governments have fought to protect against possible abuse. They have exerted laws extraterritorially. They have created new rules, such as those to route out bribery, corruption, human trafficking or sexual tourism. Even so, individuals and communities whose human rights are put at threat by business have faced stiff obstacles to justice at home. They have been repeatedly turned away in these companies’ home countries. Subsequently, UN human rights treaty bodies, regional and national courts are increasingly recognizing the need for national governments to actively protect against human rights abuses committed by their companies, no matter where they occur.
Judicial Mechanisms
Advocacy for legal solutions within the corporations’ home-country on its human rights violations abroad is critical and can improve lives. Judicial mechanisms include:
- The State secrets precedent presents an obstacle to advancing corporate accountability. It allows states to block the release of information in lawsuits. Particularly if such information could constitute a threat to national security.
- Lawsuits against companies complicit with repressive governments. For example, Yahoo! Inc. provided private information of email users to the Chinese government. The government in turn detained and prosecuted human rights advocates and journalists. The activists filed suits against Yahoo! Inc.
- Developing internal codes of conduct. For example, Google developed an internal code of conduct. But most online corporations have not yet developed extensive guidelines.
- Extra-territorial lawsuits such as Foreign Investment and Host-State Arbitration. For example, Ecuador’s class action lawsuit against Texaco. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre follows such cases.
Beyond Judicial Mechanisms
Much of the debate surrounding corporate social responsibility revolves around legal issues. But civil society actors are not limited to legal instruments when confronting corporations about human rights violations.
Boycotts and Campaigns – Role of Students and Labor
Boycotts and campaign occur within the market framework. They appeal to consumers to change their behavior and in turn push corporations to change their practices to maintain profit.
Students and unions have played critical roles in forcing corporations to change their unsustainable business practices.
- Student activism: Such as the Killer Coke campaign
- Worker’s Rights Consortium: The WRC works to make campuses sweatshop free. WRC worked to enforce manufacturing codes of conduct. WRC specialized in performing audits in plants supplying branded products to the corporations that sell products on college campus stores. WRC worked together with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS).
- Appealing to Investor Responsibility. Investors, including unions with their pension funds, are becoming important actor in issues of corporate responsibility.
Challenges
It is hard to leverage small brands or brands that are not commonly known (“household brands”).
Civil society is often thought of as the “global corporate responsibility police force”. While civil society can leverage power in particular cases, it does not have the capacity to act in that role in all cases at all times.
Using International Leverage
Regulating Trade
One example is the trade of conflict minerals. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act endows the government with the power to break up companies and oversee businesses in order to protect consumers.
Disrupting the Commodity-Chain
Consumers can mobilize to pressure supply chains that utilize slave labor to comply with human rights.
Resources
Articles and Papers Regarding Extraterritorial Jurisdiction
