Business and human rights: "we have to change our ways"

Introducing the guest speakers, subcommittee chair Hélène Flautre (Greens/EFA, FR) pointed out that, with 80,000 EU companies operating in the world, the issue of business and human rights was clearly of major importance.

 

 

A year ago Prof. John Ruggie, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council a report titled "Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights". At today's EP hearing, Prof. Ruggie referred to this report and described some problems in the field.  

 

There was often "incoherence" between what states signed up to and what they did in practice, he said.  As to companies themselves, they needed to set up "an ongoing human rights diligence process" to ensure they became aware of any abuses and took steps to prevent them.  He also highlighted the need for companies to have "operational-level grievance mechanisms".

 

Turning then to the "mandatory vs. voluntary debate", Prof. Ruggie said this was a "stale" discussion. He preferred to stress that "even within the realm of voluntary approaches, public authorities have roles that are essential to making voluntarism work".  He added that it was "a misconception that companies invariably prefer state inaction to action".  

 

 

Dr Jan Wouters, law professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, came to the hearing to present a draft study, commissioned by the EP, on Business and Human Rights in EU External Relations.  He believed that while corporate social responsibility is "repeatedly invoked in EU external policies", "little concrete action is taken", and his study will make a list of suggestions to the EU and its Member States.  Among these suggestions are that the EU should strive for a clear international legal framework on the responsibilities of business for human rights and should put greater emphasis on "outcomes and accountability" rather than "dialogue" when dealing with such rights in its external policies.

 

Ruth Casals (European Coalition for Corporate Justice) said the EU had a "historic opportunity" to support the Protect, Respect and Remedy framework. Among specific proposals, she suggested that an EU parent company should be liable for any human rights abuses committed by its non-EU subsidiaries and that the limited liability of company directors be removed in this area.  

 

Other guest speakers at the hearing were John Morrison, Director of the Business Leaders' Initiative on Human Rights, and John Evans, of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. 

 

 

MEPs now took the floor. Ana Gomes (PES, PT) and Véronique de Keyser (PES, BE) believed that the European Parliament should devote time to this issue in its next term of office, Ana Gomes stressing that this would need input "from several EP committees".

 

Richard Howitt (PES, UK), vice-chair of the subcommittee and author of an EP report on corporate social responsibility in 2007, was concerned that in their efforts to tackle the economic crisis, "governments will ignore non-financial criteria, they will just ignore the whole sustainability/human rights debate".  Prof. Ruggie agreed that the outlook in the short run was "terrible" but he was more optimistic about the long run.  It was crucial that during the debate on the re-shaping of public policies that would now be taking place, the advocates of business responsibility for human rights should make their voice heard.

 

This underlined a point he had made earlier, that "business as usual isn't good enough for anybody, including business itself" and "we have to change our ways".