2020 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights

A RECORDING OF THIS SESSION IS AVAILABLE HERE.


Session organized by the Working Group on Business and Human rights in collaboration with SHIFT and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ)

Brief description of the session:
This panel session would bring together key global practitioners to provide their perspectives and expertise on some of the critical questions facing policymakers as they seek to construct MHRDD legislation that delivers both increased accountability for those whose human rights have been negatively affected by business and more and better effort on the part of companies to prevent human rights impacts in the first place.

Key specific objectives of the session:
The session aims to explore and understand developments on MHRDD at the EU level, while considering the perspectives and impacts on non-WEOG stakeholders.
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Key questions:

• What set of measures – including consequences, incentives, support and guidance – should be included in, or accompany, MHRDD legislation to ensure that companies carry out due diligence to the full scope of their responsibility under the UN Guiding Principles?
• What considerations should be made to avoid a ‘tick-box’ approach to due diligence and to encourage the business behaviors and practices that deliver outcomes for people who may be or are affected by business activity?
• How would WEOG-driven MHRDD regimes affect businesses and people in non-WEOG countries? What are their perspectives and interests in such legislation? External impacts of EU legislation – but also supporting measures to advance domestic BHR initiatives

Background to the discussion:
A growing number of states, particularly in Europe, are actively considering mandatory measures to advance business respect for human rights. In France, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, the UK, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, for example, we see governments adopting or exploring mandatory measures as part of a ‘smart mix’ of policy tools to incentivize business respect for human rights. We are also seeing enhanced use of customs controls to tackle human rights risks in global value chains, in the US with respect to forced labor and at the EU level on conflict minerals. Many of these actual and proposed measures go beyond reporting obligations to encompass comprehensive human rights due diligence and even include advances in judicial access to remedy for victims. Such measures are beginning to receive support from an increasingly diverse cross-section of businesses and investors, as well as from civil society:

• In December 2019, a small group of cocoa companies and NGOs called on the EU to develop more robust MHRDD specifically in relation to that commodity.
• A number of associations and individual businesses then started to voice high level support for the agenda.
• In September 2020, business support sharpened, with 26 companies and associations, from more than 10 European countries, issuing a public letter in support of MHREDD at the EU level. 
• In October, AIM – the European brands association – that represents more than 2500 businesses published a detailed paper, setting out their views on some of the key issues in this debate.
• This has been matched by investor support, with a group of investors worth US$5 trillion calling on governments to institute MHRDD measures.
• Civil society organizations have issued detailed and comprehensive positions on the shape of future legislation on MHREDD.

The debate on the role of comprehensive human rights due diligence regulation at the EU-level was invigorated when Commissioner Reynders (DG Justice) announced a process towards introducing a legislative proposal for mandatory human rights due diligence (MHRDD) in 2021, which would potentially create a harmonized framework across Europe. While there appears to be support among stakeholders for such a legislative due diligence framework, there is no consensus yet on what type of framework would both meet the expectations of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and incentivize and/or require the rights kinds of behaviors by business to make implementation meaningful in practice.

In addition, the debate to date has been largely Euro-centric. The views and considerations of stakeholders outside of WEOG have not been sufficiently included in the conversation.

The session will help inform the WG’s project ‘Business and human rights: towards a decade of global implementation' (also known as “UNGPs 10+ / Next Decade BHR”). Centred around the upcoming tenth anniversary of the UNGPs, the project is taking stock of practice to date, identifying gaps and challenges, and developing a vision and roadmap for scaling up implementation of the UNGPs over the course of the next decade. In recognition of evidence of what constitute some of the strongest drivers for changing business practice, the project is dedicating attention to the role of more effective regulatory drivers and specifically mHRDD as part of the “smart mix” prescribed by the UNGPs for Government action. In this context, the WG has issued recommendations regarding the legislative proposal on human rights and environmental due diligence in Europe.