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	Sustainable Development must put people not profits first by UN Working Group on business and human rights   Governments and business leaders must put people – not profits – first as the world moves towards action on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, UN human rights experts have today told a major world conference in Paris.   Human rights must be embedded in policies and practice as countries begin to translate the ambitious global goals into concrete measures, the experts told the annual OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct.   “A development path in which human rights are not respected and protected cannot be sustainable, and would render the notion of sustainable development meaningless,” said Anita Ramasastry, one of the five members of the UN Working Group on business and human rights.   The goals, agreed by world leaders as part of the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development, envisage partnerships between the private sector and governments as part of efforts to solve the world’s development challenges.   However, unless these business contributions are based on accountability and respect for human rights, the private sector risks undermining rather than supporting sustainable development, the UN experts stressed.   “For example, if a green energy project leads to displacement of an indigenous community without their consent, proper consultations and redress, the term ‘sustainable development’ rings hollow,” said Dante Pesce, another member of the UN expert group speaking at the conference.   When business activities respect people’s rights, the potential positive contribution to realizing development for all can be tremendous, the group underlined.   “Businesses can play a positive role simply by being responsible,” Mr. Pesce said. “For example, on the goal of achieving gender equality, if a company finds that its employment practices discriminate against women, and then takes effective steps to end this human rights abuse, this will make a real and significant contribution to sustainable development by advancing women’s role in economic life.”   Ms. Ramasastry added: “States are in the driver’s seat for setting development priorities in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. If they are working in partnership with the private sector, they must ensure that the firms involved are taking steps to respect human rights across their operations.   “The most powerful way for businesses to accelerate development is to embed respect for human rights across the whole of their operations and value chains.”   The UN Working Group presented a set of key recommendations designed to inform a series of international meetings this summer that have sustainable development on the agenda, including the current OECD global forum in Paris, the G20 summit in Hamburg and the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York on 10-19 July. The role of business in sustainable development will also be on the agenda of the annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva on 27-29 November.   The UN experts stressed that the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide a clear roadmap for protecting and respecting human rights in the context of business. http://bit.ly/2uDq5eN   June 2017   Should business participate in the process towards a UN treaty on business and human rights, by Carlos Lopez, International Commission of Jurists Senior Legal Adviser.   This would seem a rhetorical question and the answer self-evident. Businesses, in particular big businesses, or their lawyers normally follow up closely key developments of policy and law at the international level that would have an impact in the way they operate.   So, why would they want to stay away from negotiations on global binding rules on respect for human rights? Surprisingly, some businesses (or their representatives) seem to think it wise to effectively boycott the process.   At a recent public panel at the Notre Dame University Gateway in London on possible and viable content of the prospective treaty now under discussion in the United Nations in Geneva, the argument was made that maybe businesses should not come to the table. That was astonishing.   The UN processes are by nature intergovernmental – only States vote and decide. But non governmental organizations are formal stakeholders in these processes.   All NGOs accredited by the UN Economic and Social are entitled to engage at various levels with the UN Human Rights Councils and its bodies, including the Open Ended Working Group negotiating the Business and human rights treaty.   There are also means for non-ECOSOC accredited civil society groups and individuals to participate.   These non-governmental actors are allowed to speak in the meetings, raising issues, posing questions, making substantive proposals and formulating recommendations.   Although treaties are negotiated and adopted among States, it is a long established practice to have civil society at large and other key actors as participants in the process of formation and implementation of international law.   Businesses as profit seeking organizations do not have the same nature and objectives as non-governmental human rights organizations. But their participation and “buy in” is important. There is no real obstacle to such participation.   Global and even domestic business associations can participate in UN debates, and they can do so with a delegation as sizeable as they wish it to be.   If necessary, some NGOs that work close with the business sector typically help businesses to have a place in the room. So, there is no issue about not having access or a place in the discussions.   Then, why are now businesses worried and what is their demand? Current business stance suggests that they want a special status and place in the negotiations.   The suspicion is that they would prefer the backroom and the direct lobbying to authorities in countries’ capitals to exert decisive pressure in States positions and vote during the negotiations.   Many business enterprises do not seem interested in taking part in open, transparent and democratic processes where their positions are exposed and subject to public scrutiny.   If such is the true attitude of the business community or even of a sector of them, it would be unfortunate and counterproductive.   Backroom lobbying and blackmailing to weak or corrupt States can only spur accusations of creeping “corporate capture” of governmental authority and accentuate the current public opinion distrust of big corporations and their tactics and feed into the current backlash against economic globalization.   The ICJ and other organizations have been trying for months to convince a group of business leaders to come to Geneva for meetings with States and civil society groups ahead of the official intergovernmental meeting of October 2017.   The meetings would be a unique opportunity to hear their views as to the contents of the future treaty. Very few have responded positively.   The reluctance by business sector actors to attend consultations with civil society and states is counterproductive. They are missing the opportunity to exercise the “corporate citizenship” that they claim so often.   More importantly, they will lose the moral ground to complaint that they have not been consulted in the elaboration and negotiation of treaty texts.   If they willingly choose not to participate in the meetings and consultations, it will be difficult for them to complain later that they have not been consulted.   http://www.icj.org/should-business-participate-in-the-process-towards-a-un-treaty-on-business-and-human-rights/   May 2017   Strong call by Treaty Alliance as UN process enters new phase. (FIAN International, agencies)   To be successful, the next session should encourage constructive negotiations between States about concrete and detailed elements of the future treaty, so too for the establishment of a road map for their completion, says the Treaty Alliance.   The UN Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Respect to Human Rights will be holding its third session October 23-27, 2017. With two successful sessions behind it, negotiations will now begin on the basis of a draft presented by the OEIGWG Chair-Rapporteur. As discussions are expected to get more detailed and concrete, constructive and cooperative States’ participation is needed.   The previous two sessions (2015 & 2016) allowed a rich debate and contributed to the identification of a common ground for further progress in the elaboration of the treaty: the primary obligation of States is to protect people’s rights, including extraterritorially, over anything else. At present, regulatory gaps are leading to human rights abuses and violations as well as appalling impunity. Globally, a number of corporations are engaged in operations that result in deep environmental harm, land grabbing and use of slave labor, to mention just a few such examples.   As echoed by the recent statement, which calls for further people’s support, “the introduction and regulation of corporations’ liabilities nationally and internationally is needed so that States finally start meeting their obligations to protect human rights and the environment against harmful activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises”.   Not only is States’ commitment to the process crucial for the success of the session, but also the mobilization and solidarity of all peoples.   * The Treaty Alliance has been working together towards a legally binding instrument since 2013, when it first released a series of demands, including the passage of a UN Human Rights Council Resolution to establish an IGWG with a mandate to develop the treaty. www.treatymovement.com http://bit.ly/2qM8Mrj   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/WGTransCorp/Session2/Pages/Session2.aspx   * Elements for the Draft Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Respect to Human Rights, by the Chairmanship of the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group. Established by The United Nations Human Rights Council Res. A/Hrc/Res/26/9 (29/09/2017): http://bit.ly/2fF5crq http://www.escr-net.org/corporateaccountability/hrbusinesstreaty http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/binding-treaty   Six ways business can help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.   Transparency International is well-known for its advocacy of greater transparency and accountability in business and believes business plays an important role in ending the corruption that too often hurts the vulnerable and exacerbates poverty.   Huguette Labelle, the former chair of Transparency International, was invited to speak at the opening session of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Business Forum. She used this opportunity to reinforce our calls for a more transparent and accountable private sector and reminded the audience that achieving Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, its anti-corruption component, is essential to the success of all the other goals.   Here are six ways business can set an example:   1. By being conspicuously transparent, operating with integrity and accountability in all operations.   2. By publically disclosing and regularly monitoring strong anti-bribery and anti-corruption systems throughout all operations and those of subsidiaries.   3. By publishing financial accounts for each country of operations and publishing clearly what is paid to each government in taxes, concession fees and other contributions. This not only builds trust in the company but is also a deterrent to extortion and people can see if the money paid by business to governments is accounted for.   4. By listing who the real beneficial owners of their company and their subsidiaries are, and by promoting with governments the establishment of public registers of beneficial owners.   5. By supporting and promoting governance reforms in all state institutions at all levels including at the local level to ensure that they perform well and for the betterment of society.   6. By initiating and supporting collective action with civil society organisations, labour, academic institutions and governments, business can multiply the capacity for action.   One of the indicators for measuring SDG 16.5 – substantially reducing bribery and corruption by 2030 – puts businesses on the spot. It specifically wants to measure the reduction in private sector bribery by reducing the “proportion of businesses that had at least one contact with a public official and that paid a bribe to a public official, or were asked for a bribe by those public officials during the previous 12 months.’   Transparency International has been assessing corporate transparency since 2008. We continue to push for public registers of corporate ownership, most notably with the Group of 20 largest economies who have promised much but still failed to deliver. http://bit.ly/2hB1faX   Human Rights Watch: To the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights - Human rights defenders and civic space in the context of business activities.   Human rights defenders and civil society are instrumental in highlighting the human rights responsibilities of business and of development finance institutions. In the experience of Human Rights Watch, some changes in policy or practice by these institutions have been preceded by human rights defenders exposing the problems related to these institutions. For that reason, the protection of human rights defenders is essential in advancing greater respect of human rights by such institutions.   The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) are both the product and response to years of work by human rights defenders and civil society highlighting the need for human rights standards to apply to business. The UNGPs have moved the world closer to consensus around the minimum core human rights responsibilities of businesses. The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs) establish a solid framework for how extractives companies should seek to grapple with complex security issues.   However, this growing landscape of voluntary standards remains, quite deliberately, an accountability-free zone. Companies take up their human rights responsibilities with varying degrees of seriousness and competence, and those that choose to ignore them altogether face few, if any, consequences. Navigating complex and unfamiliar human rights contexts would be made easier for companies with meaningful government oversight and guidance.   All businesses should have adequate policies and procedures in place to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for their impact on human rights.   To meet its human rights responsibilities, a company should carefully assess potential human rights risks, monitor the impact of their activities on an ongoing basis, seek to prevent or mitigate harm, and adequately address any adverse human rights impacts it causes or to which it has contributed.   This is especially important in regards to the protection of human rights defenders, who often face threats or reprisals both by governments and private actors due to their work in exposing abuses and promoting transparency and accountability around business activities.   Human rights defenders are also key interlocutors for business if they intend to conduct adequate due diligence and mitigation as the UNGPs require.   Companies should also design early warning systems and other adequate responses to reprisals against human rights defenders and other critics of projects. In high-risk operating environments, in cooperation with independent civil society organizations, companies should create independent oversight mechanisms including third party monitoring and an independent grievance redress mechanism: http://bit.ly/2fsdeUV   Open letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and United Nations Private Sector Forum 2017 Participants from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Danish Institute for Human Rights, Institute for Human Rights & Business, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, Oxfam International, Shift   We urge participants [at the UN Private Sector Forum] to ensure that respect for human rights is an integral part of all actions towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).. Between 21 and 48 million people are estimated to work in forms of modern slavery; around 85 million of the estimated 168 million child labourers are in hazardous forms of work; and more than 2.3 million people die annually as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases.   Poor communities lose livelihoods, access to healthcare and clean water when land is taken or used without respect for their rights in the name of agriculture, construction, mining and other activities. Ending such abuses would enable these people to live their lives with dignity, with improved access to education, medical care, food, and many other SDG targets.   Businesses must put these realities at the heart of how they define their contribution to Agenda 2030. Doing so represents the private sector’s single biggest opportunity to advance human development today.   Business responsibility for respecting human rights is too often viewed only as a matter of compliance and risk management.. which underestimates the hugely positive development impacts that will be achieved through improved treatment of the millions of workers and communities affected by business activities around the world... Advancing human rights due diligence as a core element of SDG implementation strategies requires strengthened commitments from governments as well as business... We need an upsurge in innovative and collaborative ways of placing respect for the dignity of every person at the core of sustainable development: http://bit.ly/2xYXAqH   http://business-humanrights.org/sites/default/files/documents/SDGs-businesshumanrights-openletterSept2017.pdf http://business-humanrights.org/en/news http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/Session18/InfoNoteWGBHR_SDGRecommendations.pdf Visit the related web page
	Hyperglobalisation has concentrated massive wealth in a few hands by Richard Kozul-Wright United Nations Conference on Trade and Development   Sep. 2017   Hyperglobalisation has concentrated massive wealth in a few hands, boosting the cult of materialism that the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King warned us about, writes Richard Kozul-Wright, irector of the globalisation and development strategies division in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.   Fifty years ago, at New York’s Riverside Church, Martin Luther King made a passionate plea for a more equal, more just, more peaceful and more dignified world. Calling for “a radical revolution of values”, King concluded: “We must rapidly begin … the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”   There is a contemporary ring to King’s call. The giant triplets that he warned about are resurfacing, accompanied by a retreat into resentful nationalism. The gaps between the rich and everyone else are now wider than ever, and across much of the world the drive to achieve full employment with strong welfare provision was thrown into reverse gear decades ago, as governments reinvented themselves as “enablers” rather than “providers”.   The resulting sense of collective anxiety has been compounded by a growing fear that robots and rentiers are taking precedence over the livelihoods of working people and their aspirations.   By contrast, finance has been in euphoric mood. Its expansion from the early 1980s, resulting from market deregulation and enhanced by the reach of information technologies, spawned a myriad of new products to entice lenders and extended credit into every corner of economic and social life.   But instead of channelling resources into the more creative and productive activities needed for long-term growth, it encouraged short-term, speculative behaviour by banks, businesses, and households.   That behaviour produced a gathering financial storm that began a decade ago and eventually broke with devastating force on Lehman Brothers, sending investors into a panic, bringing hard times to the high street and spreading out across the global economy.   In response to that crisis, governments pumped trillions of dollars into their financial sectors and closed down the most egregious loopholes and toxic products; but however good their intentions, the reality is that few who caused the crash have been held accountable for their actions, and little has been done to tackle its root causes.   Unlike the textbook concept of pure competition, our hyperglobalised world has been accompanied by a considerable concentration of economic power and wealth in the hands of a remarkably small number of people.   Such growth rests on fragile foundations, relying on rising levels of debt and speculative asset markets to keep it going. It also generates political tensions that clash with wider public and social interests.   Indeed, since Adam Smith more clear-headed supporters of “the market”, have warned of the political dangers that can follow the concentration of economic wealth. It is therefore hardly surprising to find a popular backlash against a system that is perceived to have become unduly biased in favour of a handful of large corporations, financial institutions and wealthy individuals.   The real threat now is to the underlying trust, cohesion and sense of fairness that markets depend upon in order to function effectively. Against this, insisting that “there is no alternative” is yesterday’s political slogan.   People everywhere desire much the same thing: a decent job, a secure home, a safe environment, a better future for their children and a government that listens and responds to their concerns. They want a different deal from that offered by hyperglobalisation.   Prosperity for all cannot be delivered by austerity-minded politicians, rent-seeking corporations and speculative bankers. What is urgently needed now is a global new deal. Three elements – recovery, regulation and redistribution – remain at the heart of any such deal.   Ending austerity is a basic prerequisite of any new deal. It implies not only using fiscal policy to manage demand conditions, and making full employment a central policy goal – but also using monetary expansion to finance public investments that create inclusive and sustainable results.   But if recovery is to be sustained, “organised money” will need to be challenged; regulatory oversight over restrictive business practices will need to be strengthened; legislative action will need to be taken in support of a living wage and against tax avoidance; and communities ravaged by health and security problems will need to be repaired.   Many of the imbalances inhibiting sustainable and inclusive growth are global in nature, so “lifting all boats” requires greater international cooperation. The United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, codified in a series of goals, targets and indicators, points in that direction. What is still needed are ambitious policies and bold political leadership.   Some elements of the strategies and solutions that helped rebuild the global economy after the second world war are once again receiving attention: a 21st century makeover of these strategies can attract a new generation more in tune to King’s call for a “radical revolution in values”, determined to build a better world. http://bit.ly/2x0IRyB   • United Nations Conference on Trade and Development annual report, Beyond Austerity: Towards a Global New Deal: http://bit.ly/2wImXfG Visit the related web page
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