I met Salil Tripathi in the mid-2000s when we were both working in Colombia with oil and mining companies and NGOs on security and human rights frameworks in conflict zones. I found he was a person not easily defined as a man from the Global South (India) who was both a forceful advocate for human rights as well as a passionate supporter of private industry, multinational business and free trade. He is also a recognized writer of fiction and non-fiction, his latest book The Colonel Who Would Not Repent (Yale Press, 2016) is about the 1971 conflict that resulted in the creation of the state of Bangladesh. His travels have taken him far and wide from India to Singapore to Hong Kong London to New York with numerous detours through Colombia's conflict zones to the instable environs of the Niger Delta where global oil companies seeks to operate amidst all sorts of competing interests, many violent and predatory.

Today, Salil is based in New York and is a senior adviser at the Institute for Human Rights and Business and the Chair of the PEN International Writers in Prison Committee. Earlier, he was senior policy adviser at the London-based NGO International Alert, was researcher and campaign coordinator at Amnesty International, where he undertook research missions to Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Niger Delta, and worked on corporate accountability, including the setting up of the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, the Global Compact, and other multilateral multi-stakeholder initiatives. He received his MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and did his undergraduate work at the University of Mumbai.                             

1. Are current trends in corporate social responsibility compatible with the business and human rights agenda?

The aim of the business and human rights agenda is to have greater corporate accountability; the aim of the corporate social responsibility agenda is to spur good conduct on the part of companies. As such, the first is still keen to ensure there is no harm, while the second focuses on promoting good. It is important to have both, but they are not mutually exclusive, nor should it be the case that a mis-step in one area can be compensated by positive action in the other area. A company that has taken land forcefully, for example, cannot compensate for it by building schools for the displaced children. This is an old debate, but it still continues to exist.            

Companies were initially excited by the UNGPs because they did not create binding legal commitments or obligations, but now they realize that if they are to implement them, they need to rethink how they operate.

Partly this is because the business and human rights agenda, because of the focus on accountability, wants companies to focus more on the responsibility to undertake due diligence, which is at the heart of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPS), which were unanimously adopted at the Human Rights Council in 2011. Companies were initially excited by the UNGPs because they did not create binding legal commitments or obligations, but now they realize that if they are to implement them, they need to rethink how they operate. Many companies like the sustainable development goals (SDGs), on the other hand, partly because they are measurable and their CSR plans can be aligned with the SDGs. While that is true, SDGs too require commitment to the establishment of the rule of law, respecting rights, and commitment to gender equity, which inevitably leads companies closer to the human rights agenda. So there is a certain degree of compatibility, but not enough - which is why some civil society organizations are so keen to have a binding treaty to regulate business conduct.

 2. How are global efforts to promote business and human rights impacted by the observed rise in nationalism and authoritarianism?

The rise of nationalism and authoritarianism poses huge challenges for the business and human rights agenda. The obvious example is the criminalization of dissent - rising authoritarianism means you restrict the rights of trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights defenders, journalists, and advocates of alternative ways of governing a country. While a narrow, short-term perspective may lead a company to think that this would be good for business, but in reality it is bad for business, since authoritarian governments are known for arbitrariness, and not consistency; and no business likes arbitrariness. Businesses like a level playing field and the rule of law, and authoritarian governments believe in rule by law, not necessarily the rule of law. That's bad for human rights, for dissent, and even for business. So the rise of authoritarianism is bad for both business and for human rights.             

The rise of authoritarianism is bad for both business and for human rights. Likewise, nationalism.

Likewise, nationalism is bad for both business and human rights. Nationalism means preferring home-grown businesses and products, and not globalized trade. Such beggar-thy-neighbor policies led the world into pronounced economic downturn. If countries - in particular wealthy ones, but all countries - use nationalism as an excuse to impose import tariffs, for example, it is the poor people in those countries who would lose, since they would have to pay more. Likewise, it is the poor people in the exporting countries - be they farmers growing vegetables for the world market or women working at garment factories in Bangladesh - who would lose more and end up without jobs or doing worse jobs, even though it is nobody's case that they are paid well in their present jobs. Rising nationalism also means stigmatizing foreigners, which is terrible for migrant workers. Racism and xenophobia can flourish, and the loss is not only for the workers, and the families and economies they sustain, but also for companies which are deprived of the best talent. Neither nationalism nor authoritarianism is good for human rights, but neither is good for business and the larger society, though some businesses may get short-term advantages, at the cost of the greater common good.

3. Now that we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic what does the business and human rights approach offer the global community and individual nations?

COVID-19 is a systemic challenge for the world. It will create a different universe in every sense, and the world, a year from now, will be startlingly different. We are publishing a report in mid-April which aims to understand and explain the business responsibilities in today, in the context of the pandemic. How businesses navigate the space will be important. What's apparent is that governments have, on the whole, acted poorly. Some governments, such as China, initially tried to suppress the spread of information about the virus. Some, such as the United States, were in denial about the extent of the spread. And some, such as India, have used blunt instruments to impose lockdowns.              

It is in the interests of business to seek trade with principles and with human rights and environmental protections built in. Those are also the priorities of the human rights community.

The threats you've identified - authoritarianism and nationalism - would both get strengthened in the post-COVID-19 environment. Who would want to oppose surveillance, for example, if the government says it is to prevent the spread of a disease? Who would want to oppose the tracking of individuals, monitoring of the phones of people who have been infected? Likewise, who would object to a country saying that there need to be stricter border controls and curb in immigration to protect people from disease, or not buying products from country X, or stopping the export of (say) surgical masks? But each such step has bad consequences for business and human rights. We know that surveillance can only expand and won't be proportionate, and safeguards can be disregarded. It is in companies' interest to oppose the emergence of a super-state that's more powerful than in the past; it is in the interests of business to seek trade with principles and with human rights and environmental protections built in. Those are also the priorities of the human rights community. In our report we point out the risks that the crisis poses for the world, from a human rights perspective, and the way companies are affected, with some ideas about what they should do about it.

My take

Salil Tripathi demonstrates a remarkable combination of optimism and realism in the face of all the global challenges facing societies and their economic prospects. He clearly believes that the private sector needs to be front and center in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and implicitly suggests that a world where business does not have a prominent seat at the table might be more authoritarian and prone to nationalism.

I worked at the intersection of business and human rights more than a decade ago. Those were the days of booming commodity prices and the emergence of the Global South economically. It was always clear to me that there were a number of multinationals who embraced the business and human rights and the corporate social responsibility agendas as a public relations exercise. I also came to know many business leaders and managers who were fully committed to enabling their companies to both do not harm and do good. I always asked myself if this was sustainable after a global downturn when the bottom line matters more than ever. We will soon find out.

This interview is one of a series of conversations conducted by William H. Godnick with distinguished personalities about governance, democracy, security and human rights. It originally appeared on LinkedIn and is being published with permission from William Godnick, professor of practice at the William J Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University. Dr Godnick is a policy professional and academic dedicated to issues of security and governance in Latin America. (The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect on the Perry Center, the National Defense Univeristy nor the U.S. Department of Defense.)

Photo by Theo Thomaidis on Unsplash