We all participate in the business world in our everyday lives.
Just by living in our homes, going to work, driving our cars, using public transport, going to the shops, parks, beaches or schools or going to hospitals we interact directly or indirectly with the goings on of the business community. And those interactions bring human rights into play.
Whether we are employees or employers; consumers, wholesalers or retailers; service users or providers; business purchasers or business suppliers, human rights issues are raised.
The Commission works with business to help ensure the best possible respect and enjoyment of human rights in this context.
How can businesses impact human rights?
A company’s operations can have an impact, positive or negative, on the human rights of a broad set of people, including employees, customers, suppliers and their employees, business partners, and communities in which a company operates. In fact, there are hardly any human rights that are not relevant to business.
Australian companies operating in different countries and sectors may impact on different rights, however these are some of the most common business-related human rights impacts:
Impact on fair working conditions
Australian employers can impact a range of employment rights including the right to fair working conditions such as fair payment of wages and reasonable working hours; and the right to a safe and secure workplace including protection from harassment and bullying.
Impact on equality and dignity
Business can impact the right to equality and non-discrimination in the workplace particularly as it concerns women, people with disability, people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Indigenous peoples, the elderly, and people of diverse sexuality. This applies to employees and also to people accessing goods and services.
Impact on people’s health, life and security
Businesses can have an impact on people’s right to health and have a responsibility to provide safe and secure worksites and places of business; prevent and redress industrial accidents, spillages or contamination; and to ensure the appropriate use of water, land and air.
Impact on housing and standards of living
Business need to respect the right to housing and an adequate standard by assessing their impact on housing, land, water, farming and employment needs of the local community in which they operate.
Impact on Indigenous peoples, land and culture
The rights of Australia’s Indigenous peoples can be impacted through how businesses develop or use land or otherwise affect the enjoyment of cultural practices. To the extent that Australian companies operate overseas, the rights of other Indigenous peoples may also be affected.
Human rights impacts in the supply chain
As possible purchasers of materials and products from the global economy, the business community has the responsibility to ensure that it does not contribute to or is otherwise directly linked to human rights abuses in their supply chains like child labour, slavery, trafficking, unfair wages or unacceptably poor working conditions.
What does domestic and international law say about the responsibility of business to respect human rights?
Domestic law
A range of Australian laws currently require companies to comply with human rights standards. While these laws are not always framed in human rights language, the standards they stipulate are in fact based on Australia’s international human rights obligations. Examples include:
- Laws prohibiting discrimination and harassment in the workplace and laws requiring employers to provide equal employment opportunities. Such laws address the rights to equality and non-discrimination, which are set out in various international human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- Laws regulating conditions of work. For example, occupational health and safety, terms and conditions of employment, minimum wage, collective bargaining, and prohibition of child labour and forced labour. Such laws address a range of labour rights, which are contained in various instruments adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and in major international human rights treaties.
- Laws regarding Native Title. Such laws address economic, social and cultural rights including property rights, which are set out in various international human rights treaties or declarations including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and theDeclaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- Laws imposing liability on companies for certain acts which impact on human rights, such as bribery of foreign officials or complicity in gross human rights abuses such as war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity even if they occur overseas. Such laws are based on standards contained in a range of international instruments, for example the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
However, an Australian company that complies with Australian laws (or the local laws of a country in which the company operates), does not necessarily satisfy all its responsibilities to respect human rights. In some cases, businesses need to go beyond domestic laws if they do not reach the level, or cases conflict with, international human rights standards.
International human rights standards
At an international level there have been significant advances in examining and clarifying how businesses can respect international human rights standards.
Much of this work has been led by Harvard Professor John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights (SRSG) from 2005-2011.
In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council welcomed the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework for Business and Human Rights developed by the SRSG. This framework provided an authoritative statement on the relationship between business and human rights, recognising that while governments have the primary duty to protect and promote human rights, businesses have a distinct responsibility to respect human rights, essentially a “do no harm” standard. It also recognised the importance of access to effective judicial and non-judicial remedy when things go wrong.
In June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to operationalise the framework. These principles provide a global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human impacts linked to business activity.
The Guiding Principles outline ways in which businesses can manage risks associated with meeting human rights obligations whether at home or abroad. These strategies focus on companies knowing and showing that they respect human rights, including by preparing a human rights policy, carrying out human rights due diligence (an ongoing process based on risk management), and implementing measures, including operational-level grievance mechanisms, to address human rights breaches.
As well as providing guidance on how businesses can meet their responsibility to respect human rights, the Guiding Principles direct governments as to the steps they should take in protecting against business-related human rights abuse. The principles are therefore likely to inform domestic legal and policy standards applicable to business in the future. They are an important focal point for business, government, and civil society as they work to strengthen their respective approaches to business and human rights.
Parallel to the UN system, the International Labour Organization has adopted numerousconventions on the rights of workers.
Voluntary initiatives
A wide variety of voluntary initiatives and guidelines aimed at improving business human rights performance have also been developed by individual companies, industry bodies, NGOs, inter-governmental bodies and multi-stakeholder groups.
These initiatives include voluntary codes of conduct, monitoring and reporting procedures, and socially responsible reporting indexes. Key initiatives include:
- United Nations Global Compact: The Global Compact is a voluntary initiative that was launched by the UN in 2000. Member organisations commit to integrating human rights principles into their business operations. It has over 4800 participating companies and hundreds of stakeholders from more than 125 countries.
- United Nations Global Compact Network Australia: The Global Compact has a network in Australia that works with local business, industry and other stakeholders to address how the Australian business community can improve human rights performance. Its Human Rights Leadership Group for Business aims to meet four times a year to assist with best practice sharing and learning in this space.
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: The OECD guidelines are recommendations by governments for responsible business conduct in a global context. The Guidelines apply to multinational companies operating in or from the 30 OECD participating countries and 12 non-member countries and now include a stand-alone human rights chapter.
- There is an Australian National Contact Point (ANCP) for the OECD guidelines located in the Department of the Treasury. In addition to promoting the Guidelines, it is the job of the ANCP to consider allegations (special instance complaints) that a multinational enterprise’s behaviour is inconsistent with the Guidelines.
- Global Reporting Initiative: The GRI is a non-profit organisation that provides businesses with a sustainability reporting framework to monitor and report on economic, environmental and social sustainability. The GRI also has specific human rights indicators. There is a GRI Focal Point in Australia at the St James Ethics Centre.
- Equator Principles: The Equator Principles are a risk management framework used by financial institutions to assess and manage environmental and social risks in project financing (particularly for major infrastructure and industrial projects).
- Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights: These principles regard security and human rights in the extractive sector, which fall into three categories: risk assessment, relations with public security, and relations with private security.
- Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes: These indexes track the performance of the world’s leading companies in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria in order to provide benchmarks for human rights and sustainable practices.
- FTSE4GOOD: This Index Series measures the performance of companies that meet globally recognised corporate responsibility standards including human rights indicators.
- Good Business Register: This Australian register provides small to medium businesses with a way to report on responsible & sustainable business practices.
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/education/corporate_social_responsibility/index.html