According to Adam Greene of US Council for International Business, businesses and human rights are an important corporate responsibility issue today. If you follow the news on this subject, you get contradictory reports about companies’ impacts on human rights and it's hard to know where the truth really is. So, in my attempt to find a source of reliable information, I came across Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, an independent resource on companies’ human rights impacts worldwide. This is a non-profit organization that works to create transparency around corporate conduct in the area of human rights by monitoring over 4,000 companies throughout the world. As an information platform, it simultaneously accomplishes two main things. It informs the public on the positive initiatives undertaken by companies to support and protect human rights worldwide and helps reveal and spread the word about allegations of negative corporate conduct, complicity in and direct violations of these rights.
“By posting both positive and negative stories about the work companies do, we try to encourage them to better respect human rights and take measures to ensure that within their supply chain and throughout their operations they avoid harm to people and maximize their positive contribution,” says Joanne Bauer, Senior Researcher & New York Representative.
Collecting accurate information on the human rights impact of multinational, national and smaller local companies operating throughout the world is a major component of the Resource Centre’s work, which is carried out by a network of regional researchers based in Hong Kong, South Africa, Ukraine, India and soon in Senegal. The Resource Centre also hopes to raise funds to be able to establish researchers in Latin America and the Middle East in the near future. These regional researchers, using their contacts and language skills, have access to under-the-radar stories – both news reports in the local media and reports published by regional and local NGOS.
“Before we post the stories containing allegations of company misconduct on the web-site, we contact companies to invite them to respond. We let them know that we will include their full, unedited response alongside the report or news story. And if they choose not to respond, we let them know that we will indicate next to the story that they were invited to respond, but chose not to do so,” explains Joanne.
The original report and the company’s response/non-response are then sent out in the Resource Centre’s Weekly Update to over 7000 subscribers worldwide. It is also permanently part of the Resource Centre’s on-line library which is used monthly by over 80,000 people in 190 countries and territories. As a result of this balanced approach, about 75% of the time companies chose to provide a response. The response rate varies across regions. For instance, among Chinese companies, the response rate is lower, about 50%.
HIV/AIDS is one of the 150 human rights issues that the Resource Centre covers. Although HIV/AIDS is not usually considered a top human rights concern for companies, the efforts in this area are increasing. For example, Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria(GBC), with a membership of 200 companies, provides assistance and best practices to companies and their supply chains in preventing HIV infections at work, educating their workforce, reducing discrimination and promoting humane treatment of infected workers. Joanne argues that “anybody who has a company operating in a high-prevalence region, particularly in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa where as high as 25% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS, understands that a sick workforce is a very difficult environment to work in. Whether companies see it as a moral responsibility or just good business, they are increasingly realizing they must do something about it.”
Similarly to GBC, several other organizations such as Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum, the Corporate Council on Africa and the World Bank AIDS Public Private Partnership promote the good work companies are doing in the areas of HIV prevention and support for HIV positive employees and their families. However, there are few watchdog organizations working to disclose negative conduct on the part of businesses, such as discriminatory employment practices. This is what prompted the Resource Centre to get involved and apply their ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach aimed simultaneously at encouraging the dissemination and adoption of best practice and discouraging companies from violating the rights of people with HIV/AIDS.
In the end, given that it’s increasingly more difficult for companies to hide their poor practices in the human rights area – and the Resource Centre has greatly contributed to this increased level of transparency – everybody benefits.
“In addition to encouraging companies to do the right thing, the Resource Centre’s work is also good for companies in the business sense, because, among other things, it aims to eliminate the free rider problem. For example, if some factories can get away with sweatshop conditions or child labor to keep their costs down and secure contracts, that’s an incentive for other companies to do the same. Therefore, we need to raise the standards for all companies, creating a competitive environment where businesses can thrive without harming people in the process,” concluded Joanne Bauer.
Photo credit: CC riacale
Posts
0 comments: