The Intersection of Business and Human Rights
Fasken business and human rights lawyers Claudia Feldkamp and Brian Burkett explore the critical intersection of business and human rights in a compelling podcast episode, focusing on forced labour and child labour within economic globalisation. In a timely and insightful discussion relating to corporate human rights behaviour in today’s world, they explore recent developments, international trends and the Canadian experience of the corporate response to the changing legislative and regulatory environment.
The human rights footprint of a corporation covers how it interacts with its main people groupings:
- shareholders;
- employees and workers;
- communities;
- consumers; and
- civil society in general.
In today’s world, government and citizens alike are directing significant attention towards the human rights footprints of corporations, as economic globalisation without proper attention being paid to the social side of the economy has led to a social deficit. The most high-profile aspects are forced labour and child labour.
There is international consensus that this is an issue and that states have a role to play in developing appropriate law and policy. Businesses also have a critical role to play, recognising the impact of their activities. There are a number of different ways in which states can ensure that businesses are appropriately managing this impact, leading to the development of a set of “tools” that governments can employ to help ensure businesses respect human rights in their operations. Such initiatives include:
- reporting or transparency legislation;
- mandatory human rights due diligence legislation;
- potential import bans goods made by businesses suspected of using child or forced labour;
- national action plans; and
- the development of non-traditional mechanisms.
States are shining a spotlight on corporations and their HR footprint, with solutions migrating from voluntary measures to mandatory measures – ie, from soft law to hard law. The Canadian Forced and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act is discussed in detail.
Governments are grappling with how to manage and encourage the best business activity, and with how to manage and adverse impacts of such activity. The number of stakeholders that need to be engaged in ensuring that all the aforementioned initiatives fit together effectively is a real challenge, and proactive rather than reactive engagement is essential.
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