How can companies respect the rights of Indigenous peoples impacted by renewable projects?

In the urgent rush for renewable energy, what are the impacts on Indigenous Peoples? And how can tools like FPIC (Free, Prior, and Informed Consent) help mitigate those impacts, protect rights, and accelerate fair and equitable climate action?

In this episode, IHRB’s Frances House sits down with two human rights defenders, Robie ​Halip from ​the ​Philippines and Prabindra Shakya ​from Nepal. Robie is ​the ​coordinator of The ​Indigenous ​Peoples ​Major ​Group ​for ​Sustainable ​Development. Prabin is convenor of Asia ​Indigenous ​Peoples ​Network ​in ​Extractive ​Industries ​and Energy and also the founder ​​of ​the ​community ​Empowerment ​and ​Social ​Justice ​Network ​in ​Nepal.

Robie and Prabin share examples of renewable energy projects from Norway to Nepal and how indigenous people have been directly affected. You’ll also learn how the use of human rights conventions and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent can protect rights through better engagement and partnerships between companies and Indigenous people, which are essential to help lessen social resistance and accelerate the transition to green energy.

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What are the major challenges for business when it comes to human rights in 2024?

“The poor are more vulnerable to uncertainty and everything is uncertain”

IHRB’s Salil Tripathi sits down with renowned human rights scholar Usha Ramanathan to explore the balance of rights and responsibilities for both states and business. 

They discuss everything from data, surveillance and privacy, to climate change, agriculture - and even space. Usha offers a profound analysis of how businesses and states shape the lives of the vulnerable and shares her vision for a more equitable future, where human rights are not just recognised but respected.

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How can Ukraine start a green recovery in the midst of war?

Is it possible to rebuild Ukraine in a greener, fairer way and can this be done while the country is still immersed in war?

Two years have now passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. Tens of thousands have been killed and the fighting has caused immense damage to the environment. A groundbreaking new report has catalogued the environmental damage and outlined the essential steps needed for a green recovery. 

In this episode, IHRB’s CEO John Morrison sits down with Margot ​Wallström, who is co-chair of the group behind the report: the High-level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War. Margot is also chair of IHRB's ​International ​Advisory ​Council, a ​former ​minister ​for ​foreign ​affairs in the Swedish government, and former Vice President of the European Commission.

With the cost of environmental damage estimated to be 56 billion Euros, John and Margot discuss accountability; how environmental damage might now be viewed by international courts as a war crime; and the report's call for a green rebuild of Ukraine’s infrastructure.

The report's recommendations have the health and wellbeing of the Ukrainian people at its heart. Its findings will be of paramount interest to businesses looking to invest in the recovery of Ukraine.

Read the full report: An
Environmental Compact for Ukraine. A
Green
Future: Recommendations
for
Accountability
and
Recovery

Why must companies listen to Indigenous Peoples?

The construction of a mega port in Kerala, Southern India, is having severe impacts on artisanal coastal communities, and coastal Indigenous Peoples who make their livelihoods from activities like fishing. 

When planning and implementing new developments, how should companies meaningfully engage Indigenous Peoples in the process? 

In this episode, IHRB's Frances House talks with Johnson Jament, the founder and Executive Director of Blue Green, an organisation which advocates for the rights of coastal communities in the area. Joining Frances and Johnson in the discussion is Tulika Bansal, a business and human rights expert based in Delhi. 

Together they discuss the impacts of corporate activity on fishing communities in Kerala, the value of listening to the voices of artisanal coastal communities and coastal Indigenous People, and the imperative for companies to be proactive to prevent harms caused by their activities.

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How can tech companies tackle misinformation and disinformation in this record election year?

2024 is a record year for elections. Across the globe nearly four billion people will be heading to the polls - half the world’s population.

In the digital age, misinformation and disinformation can spread easily, with big implications for human rights. How can social media companies protect truth and mitigate these risks?

To answer this question, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi sits down with Priyanka Motaparthy, Director of the Armed Conflict, Counterterrorism, and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, and Iain Levine, director on the human rights policy team at Meta.

In this episode our guests discuss the importance of free speech, what constitutes hate speech, the difference between misinformation and disinformation, and the serious repercussions for elections in an era of ‘fake news’, and what social media companies are doing to counter these issues.

What has the Universal Declaration of Human Rights meant for worker rights?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is clear that "all organs of society" need to respect human rights, and Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the UDHR architects, spoke about making these rights a reality "on the farm, in the factory and in the office".  

As we mark 75 years of the UDHR, how has this foundation of human rights guided and improved the fulfilment of worker rights?

In this episode of Voices, IHRB’s CEO John Morrison sits down with Sharan Burrow, former General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, to get a trade unionist perspective on the UDHR’s legacy to improve conditions for workers, in particular for women and marginalised groups, and how collective bargaining and freedom of association are still critical to fulfil human rights.

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Is the ‘decoupling’ phenomenon hot air or a human rights concern?

What is the phenomenon of ‘decoupling’ and how is it affecting human rights and business?

IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, along with guests Vasuki Shastry and Isabel Hilton, unpack what ‘decoupling’ is, whether it’s just hot air, how it’s more than an economic phenomenon, and why human rights practitioners should pay close attention.

Vasuki and Isabel are both journalists and authors. Isabel is a climate specialist, who founded the NGO China Dialogue. Vasuki is a finance expert, who’s written books on ESG and Asia.  

They discuss the links between decoupling and other concepts, such as de risking and reshoring, and how they impact human rights and responsible business. In a nuanced discussion, geopolitics, risk mitigation, and supply chain resilience are all considered.  

Advancing people and planet agendas in the GCC - how can it be done?

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are all facing challenges when it comes to balancing the need for urgent climate action with economic growth and advancing the welfare of workers. So how do you transform GCC economies to a new system that’s both sustainable and takes into account the welfare of workers?

This region of the world has traditionally been heavily focused on oil and gas revenues as the primary source of GDP. At the same time, this area is disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. 

IHRB’s Tamara Juburi discusses this challenge with Tariq Al Olaimy, Managing Director of 3BL Associates, a think tank working in the Middle-East and based in Bahrain. 

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Why do human rights matter when it comes to transition minerals?

Have you ever thought about where the materials that make up your devices come from? Metals and minerals such as cobalt, copper, and lithium, for example, are essential to many everyday items such as laptops, mobile phones, and TVs, as well as electrical wiring, telephone cables, wind turbines and electricity generators. These commodities are also essential for a successful transition to a low carbon economy. 

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the countries where these materials are mined. Often the mining of these commodities isn’t regulated, or regulation around this mining isn’t enforced.  

“The local community are completely ignored’

Francesca Fairbairn from IHRB’s Commodities and Oceans Programme speaks to Dr Isokelo Munyuku Fama, a Doctor and human rights defender in the area of South Kivu Province in DRC, where a lot of mining takes place. They discuss the lack of adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by companies working in the area and how South Kivu would welcome with open arms companies that adhere to these principles. 

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How can companies and governments ensure respect for human rights on the ocean?

"The health of the waters itself matter to us because 50% of the air we breathe is purified by the water and quite specifically the marine life in the water."

Human rights violations on the high seas are widespread - in the 'wild watery west' there is precious little effective policing and the workforce is largely invisible. Yet the world's 1.8 million seafarers transport 80% of the world's trade and ensure fish is on our table.

What governance exists to protect them? And what more could business be doing to improve matters? 

Hear from Ian Urbina, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has been reporting on environmental and human rights crimes on the high seas for many years. Ian now runs the non-profit organisation Outlaw Ocean Project. In this episode of Voices he talks to IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn about maritime human rights violations and what governments and companies can do to improve respect for human rights on the ocean.

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What is labour mobility and what impact do migrant workers have on the global economy?

‘We could build a future with shared prosperity’

Labour mobility is hugely important to the future of the global economy, so why has migration become a highly politicised issue, and what impact are labour shortages having on different sectors?

OECD countries are rapidly ageing and unfilled jobs cost the global economy 3 - 7 billion dollars every day. At the same time, migration is one of the most powerful anti-poverty tools in the world today, with benefits from remittances - the money that migrant workers send back to their origin countries - far outstripping foreign aid.  

In this episode of Voices, you will hear about the benefits that labour mobility brings to both origin and receiving countries from Rebekah Smith, Executive Director at Labor Mobility Partnerships. In conversation with IHRB’s Carmen Pedraza, they discuss the best ways to address these issues, given the major challenges that exist in current migration systems, and where we can help.

Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP) is an organisation that believes in the power of movement to address some of the biggest issues we face in the global economy. 

Rebekah will be appearing as the keynote speaker at The Global Forum for Responsible Recruitment. To find out more head to: gfrr.org

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What does one of the first corporate just transition strategies look like?

Global emissions reductions remain dangerously off course. Cuts across all industries and sectors need to come fast and deep.

“Just transitions” is the concept of managing the social impacts of decarbonisation well – minimising the negative risks and maximising the positive opportunities it will have for people and their human rights. Social disruption is one of the biggest threats to climate action today. So just transition approaches are key to achieving our global net-zero targets in time. 

With very little best practice available or international standards to guide corporate approaches, how should companies kick-start their just transition strategies and what are their priority issues?

In this episode of Voices, you will learn about one of the world’s first corporate just transition strategies from Rachel McEwan, Chief Sustainability Officer at energy company SSE, who talks with IHRB’s Haley St. Dennis about how they had to learn by doing.

SSE released one of the first-ever corporate just transition strategies in November 2020. In 2021 they followed up with an action framework honing in on the workforce transition out of high carbon activities and into renewables. And in April 2023, the company released one of the first-ever corporate disclosures on progress against its just transition strategy, including new metrics for measuring key changes and impacts.

In their conversation, Rachel and Haley talk about the local context in Scotland, how the company got started with their strategy, the principles SSE developed to guide their approach, and what some of the key lessons learned have been along the way. 

SSE develop, own and operate low carbon infrastructure to support the zero-carbon transition, including onshore and offshore wind, hydro power, electricity transmission and distribution grids, and efficient gas-fired generation with interests across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Poland, 

You can read more about SSE’s approach here.

You can also read more about the Scottish Just Transition Commission here.

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What is the responsibility of business during armed conflict?

Many companies are operating in conflict zones, whether it is Sudan, Ukraine, or Myanmar. 

Some perform necessary functions, such as providing water or electricity, or delivering food and healthcare. But others, by the nature of their activities, run the risk of being complicit in perpetuating conflict and aiding abuses and crimes. 

What type of corporate activities can lead to such risks? What’s needed to hold companies to account for the negative impacts they might have during conflict?

In this episode of Voices, you’ll meet Mark Taylor, an expert in human rights and business, and senior program manager with the Clooney Foundation of Justice’s Docket Initiative. Mark talks with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi about the risk of corporate complicity when operating in zones of conflict, as well as the need for greater company transparency, and more investigative power for civil society to hold complicit companies to account.

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What is the built environment and how does it impact human rights in Lagos?

Lagos is a megacity, with a population of 24 million. Two thirds of its inhabitants live in informal housing. 

What is the built environment in Lagos and why is it important to business and human rights?

Simply put, the built environment is the places we spend most of our lives - homes, offices, streets and parks. It's also the infrastructure that connects them - transport, energy, and water for example. Businesses - developers, architects, construction firms - play a huge role in shaping the built environment.

In this episode of Voices you will hear from Kenny Adirogba from Spaces for Change - a non profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. Kenny talks with IHRB’s Annabel Short about how her organisation is improving the city’s built environment, which is key to inhabitants leading happy and healthy lives - and to the realisation of human rights.

Annabel discovers how Kenny’s work with Spaces for Change is supporting the voices of marginalised people to be heard when it comes to decision making that affects their built environments. They discuss the impact of climate change on Lagos and the importance of building sustainable housing that’s accessible to all. 

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If you care about human rights and are curious about the impact of business on peoples’ rights, then follow Voices to get each episode straight to your feed.

Related: City summary reports

In a series of local research, IHRB is spotlighting eight cities, focusing on their built environment decarbonisation and resilience plans. This research series asks: how is each city minimising the negative social consequences of climate action, and maximising the positive impacts that built environment can have for inhabitants and the environment? And what are recommended actions from the government, investors, and the private sector?

Read the first report, available now: Pathways for a just transition in the built environment - Lagos and Prague

What has the Rana Plaza disaster taught us?

April 24 marks ten years since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which killed 1,134 people and injured thousands more, most of whom were working in factories supplying clothing for international brands. 

Progress has been made to protect workers, but questions remain. 

What did we learn from this disaster about how businesses and governments can better protect the rights of workers? How have business and human rights interventions that followed the disaster fallen short? What still needs to happen to better protect workers in global supply chains? 

In this episode of Voices, you will hear from IHRB’s Salil Tripathi and Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, IHRB’s Research Fellow and Director at the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at UC Berkeley, who have together authored a new briefing: Rana Plaza ten years on: lessons for human rights and business.

Salil and Sanchita examine the impacts of the disaster and consider the renewed action needed to stop a similar tragedy happening again. 

You will also hear Salil speak to Nazma Akter, a former child worker, garment factory worker, labour organiser, and Director of AWAJ Foundation, which Nazma founded in 2003 to protect workers’ rights in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh. 

And finally, to find out how lessons from Rana Plaza impacted other sectors, Salil speaks to Rizwana Hassan, a lawyer and environmentalist who explains the issue of worker safety in the ship-breaking industry.

IHRB has published a new briefing paper - Rana Plaza ten years on: lessons for human rights and business - which examines the impact of the disaster and the steps taken since. 

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What’s the role of constructive vs confrontational dialogue?

What’s been the attitude of business towards human rights over the past 25 years? What have Amnesty UK and IHRB learnt from our experiences of getting business to act responsibly over this time? And what part does constructive or more confrontational dialogue play in all this?

In this episode you’ll meet Peter Frankental, an expert in human rights and business, and the Economic Affairs Programme Director at Amnesty International UK. Peter shares his reflections and lessons influencing businesses since the 90s.

Peter sat down with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi and Frances House to reflect on his time at Amnesty, having recently marked 25 years there. Peter started working at Amnesty at the end of the 90s when there was a sense of optimism for human rights - the Berlin Wall had fallen and globalisation was on a great march.

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Muetter Iliqud on the Use of Uyghur Forced Labour

In this conversation Muetter Iliqud speaks with Francesca Fairbairn about the use of Uyghur forced labour by the Chinese communist party in factories and farms producing both commodities (such as cotton, polysilicon) and manufactured products from toys and apparel to technical devices and even products made from human hair, that are destined for western markets. 

Muetter is a project analyst at the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database (UTJD), based in Norway. The UTJD is an ongoing project that focuses on the registration of the disappeared and extrajudicially interned Uyghurs in East Turkistan. The UTJD project was founded by the Norwegian Uyghur Committee (NUC) in 2018; Muetter has served as the head of communications for the NUC, and as project analyst for the UTJD since 2020. Muetter’s recent work at the UTJD has included testimony collection, data gathering, and data analysis, as well as authoring books and reports about the current Uyghur Genocide. Muetter is a master's student in International Human Rights Law at the Kent Law School, the University of Kent.

Sources cited in this podcast include research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (including “Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang”) and the End Uyghur Forced Labour Coalition.

Eli Friedman on the Urbanization of People

China has seen large-scale migration of workers from rural into urban areas. While the phenomenon of “left behind children” in rural areas has been widely reported, many children travel with their parents to cities. Given barriers to accessing public services that rest on a residency-status policy known as “hukou”, many of these migrant worker children are educated in privately-run migrant schools outside of the main public school system. A lack of investment means that these schools are often poorly constructed, with limited protection against excessive heat, cold, rain and air pollution. The students experience continuous disruption and turmoil: widespread school demolitions and closures take place as a combined result of government policy and rising land values. 

For further context see: 

• The Urbanization of People – The politics of development, labor markets and schooling in the Chinese City, Eli Friedman, Columbia University Press

• Financial Times video: “Evergrande, the end of China’s property boom”

• And IHRB’s “Framework for Dignity in the Built Environment”, which covers the human rights dimensions of the six built environment lifecycle stages: Land; Planning & Finance; Design; Construction; Maintenance & use; Demolition and redevelopment. 

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Adriano Nuvunga on Being a Human Rights Defender

In a recent conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi at the 2022 Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights Plenary, Prof Adriano Nuvunga spoke of the corrosive influence of money in politics in Mozambique, the threat of violence human rights defenders face, and the need for widening the space for human rights defenders so that they can do their work without interference.

Initiatives like the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights are important for the extractive sector to mainstream human rights risks; combining the concern with commitment to transparency can help address governance gaps that resource-endowed countries face. 

Adriano Nuvunga is a courageous anti-corruption activist from Mozambique who has played a leading role in building civil society institutions in Mozambique. At the Centre for Public Integrity, he raised many challenging questions about corruption in Mozambique. A keen critic of the extractive sector and how it affects political systems, he has been threatened personally but he continues to advocate for transparency and integrity.

Anton Mifsud-Bonnici on the Role of Business in Conflict

Anton Mifsud-Bonnici talks about business, investment and ESG within the context of the Russia and Ukraine conflict and the consequences on the human rights of affected citizens. 

In his conversation with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, he touches on responsible entry and exit – stating the latter as being more difficult and as being the fiduciary duty of investors. He also offers learnings on what heightened due diligence in practice should look like for businesses.

“It’s very important to look at conflict and look for corruption because at some point corruption has led to conflict. There is no conflict in the world that has emerged without corruption.”

Anton Mifsud-Bonnici is a Mediterranean-based independent business advocate. He specialises in ESG master strategy related to the low carbon energy transition. He is a thought leader on governance and an expert in stakeholder management and relationship building. He serves as a Commissioner overseeing the ongoing review of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights multi-stakeholder initiative. He has earlier worked with the UN and BP. He advises on peace making in Mozambique and gender fairness in Sierra Leone.

Egbert Wesselink on Corporate Crime and Sudan

In a conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi in Toronto on the sidelines of the Voluntary Principles Plenary Meeting in May, Egbert spoke about the Swedish war crime investigation into Lundin Energy AB over its activities in Sudan, instigated by his report Unpaid Debt. 

He discusses the indictment of two executive managers – expected to go to court in 2022, and its broader implications for business and human rights. 

Egbert Wesselink is a historian by training and serves as Senior Advisor with PAX, the Dutch peace movement. Before joining PAX he worked at the Dutch parliament, as a teacher in a French Lycée d’État, as Human Rights officer with UNTAC, and as a Russia/Caucasus expert with the UNHCR. He has been, and continues to be deeply involved with civil society in Russia today.

At PAX, he leads the programme on Natural Resources, Conflict and Human Rights, focussing on the impacts of business enterprises on the rights and interests of communities in general and in Sudan, South Sudan, DRC and Colombia in particular. He has been actively involved in multi-stakeholder initiatives, including the Dutch Coal Dialogue and Bettercoal, and serves on the Steering Committee of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.

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Mark Dickinson on Updates to the Maritime Labour Convention

The ILO Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) is an international treaty to protect the seafarers’ rights that came into force in 2006. It has now been ratified by more than 100 countries, representing over 90% of the world's fleet. One of its provisions is a the Special Tripartite Committee (STC) comprising government, ship-owners and seafarers' representatives, meet periodically to keep the convention constantly reviewed and updated. The latest meeting of the STC was held in Geneva in May 2022, with an agreement on a number of changes, including a commitment to better social cohesion for seafarers. 

In this podcast, Mark Dickinson, General Secretary of seafarers union Nautilus International, talks to IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn about these changes, and proposed improvements that were not approved by all parties. Mark, who began his maritime career at age 16 and has been advocating for seafarers for several decades, was instrumental in the original drafting of the MLC, and leads the seafarers' representatives delegation at the STC in pushing for improvements to the convention.

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Spenser Bomholt Fain on the Digital Training Platform Quizrr

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Progressive companies are constantly searching for new and better ways to engage with their workforces. They do this to identify issues, address concerns, improve worker satisfaction and drive productivity. Making sure that workers can relate to and be willing participants in these interactions is important in delivering meaningful information to both workers and those who employ them. Whilst the use of technology can never replace the benefits of effective face-to-face interaction it does allow quick and easy collection of data and delivery of information in a user-friendly form and multiple languages. Digital platforms are increasingly being deployed as an aid to training, communications, and a better understanding of workers and the challenges they may face.

In this Voices Podcast Neill Wilkins from IHRB talks to Spenser Bomholt Fain, Global Programme Manager at Quizrr a digital training platform that is used in the supply chains of a growing number of International Brands.

Discover more about Quizrr here: www.quizrr.se/

Jump-to:

(1:00) What is Quizrr?

(3:34) How does Quizrr work?

(5:20) User centricity in Quizrr’s work

(6:00) Suppliers gain from Quizrr

(9:00) Quizrr and Responsible Recruitment

(11:00) Sectors covered by Quizrr

Transparentem on Social Audit Deception

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Social audits are a crucial tool for companies to monitor on-the-ground conditions at supplier factories. These audits are high-risk undertakings for suppliers as findings of violations can spur buyers to intensify oversight or terminate a business relationship altogether. Suppliers therefore have a strong incentive to ensure they pass audits, which leads some to deceive auditors, resulting in misleading and inaccurate findings. Recruiters who connect workers to jobs may also hide abusive practices from suppliers in ways that later prevent auditors from detecting these problems. Audit deception is a serious impediment to identifying and remedying human rights abuses in global supply chains. 

On this Voices conversation, Transparentem’s Andrew Korfhage and Sophie Broach speak to IHRB’s Guna Subramaniam. We discuss their recently published report, Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform. The report compiles evidence of efforts to conceal labour rights violations from social auditors in the apparel industry in India, Malaysia, and Myanmar, and research from peer organisations and academics which indicate that audit deception is a pervasive problem in apparel supply chains. Interviewed workers’ accounts reveal that many types of labor abuses can be hidden from auditors, including recruitment fees, child labour, passport retention, wage and hour violations, and hazardous working conditions. 

Andrew Korfhage is the Interim Vice President of Strategic Engagement at Transparentem, where he builds and manages critical partnerships and facilitates collaborative solutions to combat exploitative labor. Sophie Broach plans and coordinates investigations, analysing research data, and writes on labour and environmental violations in global supply chains.

Download the report, Hidden Harm: Audit Deception in Apparel Supply Chains and the Urgent Case for Reform

Jump-to: 

(00:45) The case of labour rights in the apparel industry

(1:30) What is Transparentem?

(2:50) What does the Transparentum report cover?

(4:35) Audits beyond the apparel industry

(7:00)  Suppliers and their methods to conceal labour abuses

(8:00) Why would workers lie during audits?

(11:10) Concerning examples of recruitment agencies methods for extortion

(15:30) Do legislations on supply chains impact audit practices?

(18:40) Next steps for Transparentem

Saul Diaz on the Reintegration of Returning Migrants

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Reuters reported in April this year that roughly 85,000 of the 172,000 migrants at the southern US border were from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. And the IOM states that from January to August of this year 70,074 were deported from Mexico and the US back to Central America. Add onto those figures, the thousands of workers who enter the US on seasonal worker visas and then return home, it is clear there are a huge number of migrants who are returning to Central America under a variety of circumstances. While there is no system currently in place to monitor what happens to migrants when they return, we do know that returnees are particularly at risk of poverty, violence, and victimization.

Saul Diaz Ortiz, Regional Director of the SwissContact is addressing the unique needs of returning migrants through partnerships with individuals, communities, government, and business, thanks to the Nuevas Oportunidades project. Listen to his experience when identifying and boosting the economy of the countries of origin of returning migrants when they are properly integrated into society.

Also, take a look at Ono of Rafael’s publications: Rafael retornó a El Salvador tras trabajar 13 años en EE.UU. y encontró una segunda oportunidad | Noticias de El Salvador

Jump-to:

(3:15) Introduction of Nuevas Oportunidades

(7:30) The stigma against returned migrants in Central America - a historic approach

(9:20) The story of a returned migrant worker 

(15:30) The importance of reintegrating returning migrants

(20:06) Working to fight discrimination against returning migrants?

(21:40) The importance of raising awareness in the private sector.

(22:40) An effective dynamic to fight discrimination at the community level 

(24:20) The positive impact of Nuevas Oportunidades: an opportunity for economic development

On Utopias and the Climate Crisis with Danilo Palazzo

The dystopian mood music surrounding the United Nations 26th annual climate change conference (COP26) is stark. Government and business leaders are not meeting the targets set in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, and humanity is quickly running out of time to correct course.

In this special episode of Voices, IHRB’s Haley St. Dennis and John Morrison unpack the concept and study of dystopian and utopian thinking throughout history, in search of guidance for how to think about and tackle the climate crisis. Feeding into the discussion is Dr. Danilo Palazzo, an academic expert on the subject of utopias, who emphasises the usefulness of utopian thinking as a response to dystopian realities, particularly their value in crafting blue-sky solutions and forcing problem-solvers to think beyond present generations’ needs.     

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About Danillo Palazzo: 

Dr. Danilo Palazzo is a Professor and Director of the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati since October 1, 2012. Prior to this, Dr. Palazzo was on the faculty at the School of Building Engineering and Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. His major fields of interest are urbanism, urban design, and planning. Hear more on utopias from Dr. Palazzo here.

Archana Kotecha on Access to Remedy for Migrant Workers

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Remediation programmes have the potential to strengthen existing human rights due diligence, compliance, and broader ESG policies first by involving workers in the detection and
resolution of any human rights grievance and then by providing consistent feedback on the success of these human rights policies.

In this IHRB Voices podcast Archana Kotecha Director of the Remedy Project discusses with Neill Wilkins IHRB new guidelines for ensuring access to remedy for migrant workers.

The Remedy Project: Operational Guidelines for Business for Remediation of Migrant Worker Grievances.

Jump-to points: 

(1:20) The importance of access to remedy for migrant workers 

(3:50) The creation of a Guidelines for remedy for migrant workers

(7:10) The outline of the seven steps of the Guidelines 

(12:30) How to apply them?

Sophia Kagan on Technology for Responsible Recruitment

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Digital platforms for migration can be a great tool for promoting transparency of recruitment processes for migrant workers and businesses trying to recruit workforce. They may also encourage improved government oversight of recruitment in countries of origin and destination.

In this episode of Voices Sophia Kagan, ILO Chief Technical Adviser on Fair Migration in the Middle East, talks to Neill Wilkins, IHRB Head of Migrant Workers Programme, about a new ILO report on government developed digital recruitment platforms. They discussed the opportunities and challenges of technology for promoting the wellbeing of migrant workers.

Click to the research paper Promoting Fair and Ethical Recruitment in a Digital World.

Jump-to: 

(1:18) The trigger for the paper 

(3:25) Examples of digital platforms for the inclusion of migrant workers: EPS in Korea & eMigrate in India.

(6:35) The need for collaboration from technology and the political will

(11:00) How easy is it for migrant workers to access digital tools?

(13:50) The future impact of technology for the inclusion of migrant workers

Nissara Spence on Employer Obligations and Cultural Sensitivity

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Nissara Spence, Project Officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Thailand, speaks to IHRB's Guna Subramaniam about the recently published Human Resource Guidebook on Employer Obligations and Cultural Sensitivity. The Guidebook aims to promote a working environment for the respectful inclusion of migrant workers by acknowledging the diversity in their backgrounds. 

Spence has been with the United Nations for more than five years. Since 2018, she has been the National Project Officer for the Corporate Responsibility to Eliminate Slavery and Trafficking, (CREST) programme at IOM Thailand. In this episode, she guides us through the Guidebook's content, which highlights the importance of cultural sensibility to build trust and reduce conflicts in the workplace of a country where 10% of its workforce are migrant workers.

You can download the Guidebook here.

Jump-to points: 

(1:20) The Concept of the Guidebook

(3:23) Who does the Guidebook address?

(5:35) The responsibilities of the employers

(8:25) Cultural sensitivity in communication

(9:25) Tips for employers to develop cultural sensitivity

(16:50) How to access the Guidebook?

Sumitha Shaanthinni Kishna on Malaysia, Migrants, and the Pandemic

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When Malaysia went into lockdown in March 2020, cases of employers violating the rights of migrant workers raised significantly. These violations included unfair termination, unpaid wages, poor living conditions, and more. In addition, movement control orders carried out by government officials arrested undocumented migrants, which lead to an outbreak in detention centers.

In this Voices conversation, Sumitha Shaanthinni Kishna, the Director of Our Journey and the current Chair of the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), speaks to IHRB's Guna Subramaniam about the pandemic's impact on migrants workers in Malaysia and what businesses should do to alleviate their vulnerability.

Jump-to points: 

(03:20) The work of Our Journey in Malaysia
(4:40) The impact of the pandemic on migrant workers in Malaysia
(07:00) The additional burden on women
(8:44) The risks for businesses in the absence of effective enforcement of migrant workers' rights
(12:00) The active role of businesses and what businesses should do to avoid unethical recruiting 
(24:45) The need to strengthen the collaboration between civil society and business 

Marketing Students on Reframing Negative Portrayals of Migrant Workers

In this special episode of Voices, we welcome students undertaking their Masters degree in Marketing at Hult International Business School in London, to showcase their innovative thinking behind a competition and challenge around the perception of migrant workers. 

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Devised to expose students to some of the challenges they may face in their future careers, four teams applied their formal marketing skills to answering this question: how can IHRB help to reframe negative portrayals of migrant workers in a more positive light, as the agents of economic vitality that they are?

Andrew Stephens and Simon Bennett on Delivering on Seafarers’ Rights

This Day of the Seafarer podcast brings together Andrew Stephens of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI), and Simon Bennett of Swire Shipping to reflect on the ongoing maritime crew change crisis and wider human rights issues among the world’s 1.6 million seafarers.

In conversation with IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn, they discuss the impact on seafarers of being unable to disembark ships, sometimes for many months beyond the end of their contract, due to national government-imposed COVID port restrictions. A former seafarer, Simon Bennett emphasises the actions that need to be taken to ensure their wellbeing at sea - such as increasing connectivity for better contact with loved ones.

Andrew and Simon also discuss the development of an upcoming industry Code of Conduct (CoC) and accompanying implementation tools, an initiative between IHRB, SSI and Rafto Foundation, with Simon among a number of industry stakeholders on the Working Group. This project sees charterers, shipowners and operators come together to address the wider underlying and systemic issues creating labour and human rights risks for seafarers worldwide.

Stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google or your favourite podcast player

Simon Bennett is the General Manager for Sustainable Development for both of the Swire group shipping companies: The China Navigation Company, whose brand Swire Shipping provides high frequency liner shipping services in the Asia Pacific market, Swire Bulk and Swire Pacific Offshore. He has worked for the Swire group shipping companies for the past 36 years, latterly at sea as Master before coming ashore in 1991 and has since then held a variety of roles for the last 12 years as the General Manager for Sustainable Development.   

Andrew Stephens is the Executive Director for the Sustainable Shipping Initiative. With an international background in the maritime industry, working for leading maritime service providers, in the position of Chief Operating Officer, such as Wilhelmsen Ships Service and Wallem Group, in a career which has seen him working in the UK, UAE, USA, Norway and Hong Kong. After a successful period in both international groups he joined The Sustainable Shipping Initiative in August 2018, where he is responsible for leadership of the Secretariat.

Emily Kenway on The Truth About Modern Slavery

The prevention of modern slavery has become one of the defining business and human rights issues of the last 10 years, but is it being effectively addressed in reality?

In this episode of Voices, Emily Kenway talks to Neill Wilkins about her book, ‘The Truth About Modern Slavery’ which describes patterns of exploitation for workers and also challenges some of the assumptions and frames of reference we use to describe and prevent modern slavery. Kenway proposes that only by changing our frames of reference, can we effectively address labour exploitation.

Stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Chrik Poortman and Maria da Graça Prado on Corruption in Infrastructure

In this conversation, Annabel Short talks with Christiaan (Chrik) Poortman and Maria da Graça Prado of CoST - the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative. CoST uses an approach of multi-stakeholder working, disclosure, assurance and social accountability to reduce risks of corruption in public infrastructure.  

An estimated 10-30% of investment in infrastructure – projects such as roads, bridges, ports schools, and hospitals – is lost through corruption and mismanagement. Corruption does not only have financial implications. It also deepens inequality, and siphons funding away from essential government services. It leads to the construction of faulty projects that can put people’s lives at risk, and it can even topple governments, as happened as a result of the Odebrecht scandal (the bribery case in which the Brazilian conglomerate paid US$788 million in bribes, across 12 countries).

Chrik and Maria share the challenges they face in this work, and what motivates them. They describe the specific ways that effective community engagement is key to reducing corruption and building sustainable infrastructure, and the importance of local and investigative media. They provide insights on the challenges that arise in contexts of crisis and rapid-response such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need for deep ongoing anti-corruption work over time. This will be all the more important as many governments scale up their infrastructure investments to rebuild their economies. 

Stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Felicitas Weber on Benchmarking Responsible Recruitment

A recent poll at the 2021 Global Forum for Responsible Recruitment suggested that “some progress but more work [is] required” on recruitment fees – a finding also revealed in Know The Chain's latest survey of recruitment practices. 

In this episode of Voices, Felicitas Weber, Project Manager at Know the Chain talks to Neill Wilkins (IHRB’s Head of Migrant Workers Programme) about the importance of ranking company efforts to ensure responsible recruitment to prevent exploitation of workers.

Know the Chain is a resource for companies and investors that ranks the 180 largest global ICT, food, and apparel companies on their efforts to address forced labour in their supply chains. 

Francesca Mangano on Addressing the Crew Change Crisis

Hundreds of thousands of seafarers are still stranded at sea due to COVID-induced port restrictions. The global crew change crisis, one of the Top 10 Business and Human Rights Issues for 2021, is now well into its second year.

In this episode of Voices, IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn speaks to Francesca Mangano of TFG London - a South African retail business with a global supply chain - about the company’s efforts to address the crew change crisis. Francesca discusses TFG’s steep learning curve from very little visibility on its maritime logistics to addressing the rights of seafarers aboard vessels carrying its goods.  She describes engaging with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) to ensure that all container ships they use have collective bargaining agreements in place that guarantee minimum labour rights for the seafarers; and engaging with its maritime partners to accept the IMO Industry Recommended Framework of Protocols, which set out general measures and procedures designed to ensure that ship crew changes can take place safely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The issues discussed are also featured as a case study in a new guidance from the UN Global Compact, "Maritime Human Rights Risks and The Covid-19 Crew Change Crisis - A Tool to Support Human Rights Due Diligence", to which IHRB has contributed. 

Francesca Mangano is the CSR and Sustainability Executive at TFG London. As head of the CSR and Sustainability Department, and with over 15 years' experience in human rights, ethical trading and sustainability, she is leading the development of TFG London corporate social and environmental responsibility strategy aimed at guiding the business to work within its sphere of influence towards human rights, labour rights and environmental responsibility.

James Cockayne on The Sustainable Development Case for Ending Modern Slavery

Over 40 million people globally find themselves in some form of modern slavery. This is despite concerted focus and efforts by global brands, trade unions, NGOs and governments to prevent it.

To date however much anti-slavery understanding and activity has focussed on a criminal justice approach with very mixed results. A new report Developing Freedom from the UN University suggests a new way of understanding and addressing slavery may be helpful. If slavery is a systemic issue deeply embedded in economic models which deny people any agency, how could improved development outcomes and the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals be used to understand the drivers and leverage better responses to prevent exploitation.

In this episode of Voices IHRB Head of Migrant Workers programme Neill Wilkins talks to Professor James Cockayne the report’s lead author about the  long term impacts of slavery  on development and the factors embedded within global value chains that maintain the status quo.

Stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

About James Cockayne

James Cockayne is Professor of Global Politics and Anti-Slavery at the University of Nottingham in the UK, and a Senior Fellow at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. He currently chairs the US Council on Foreign Relations Study Group on Trafficking in Persons and is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Futures Council for the New Agenda on Equity and Social Justice. 

James also leads the Secretariats of both Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking, and Investors Against Slavery and Trafficking Asia-Pacific.

He was the  principal investigator and lead author for the report Developing Freedom

https://www.developingfreedom.org/

Bibek Dhakal on Supporting Migrant Workers in the Gulf

The economy of Nepal is heavily dependent on remittances from Nepalese migrant workers working around the world. Many Nepalese choose to work in the Gulf employed in a variety of sectors from construction to hospitality.

In this episode of Voices IHRB’s Head of Migrant Workers Programme Neill Wilkins talks to Bibek Dhakal a Nepalese migrant worker employed in the hospitality industry in UAE. Bibek is a leading member of the Nepalese migrant worker support network Shramik Sanjal and has been involved in supporting migrant workers from all countries working in the region.

About Shramik Sanjal

Shramik Sanjal is a membership-based, worker-led network of migrant workers. Most members are low-income migrants in the Gulf states and Malaysia. Shramik Sanjal work to educate, empower, and support migrant workers and advocate for the right of migrant workers to live and work abroad with dignity and with respect for rights.

Miranda Sissons on Facebook’s First Human Rights Policy

On March 16th, social media giant Facebook released its first human rights policy. Given the multiple challenges the company faces on a range of human rights issues, the announcement has generated great interest and questions about how it will be implemented. Few companies have an impact on society as vast as Facebook does. By offering a social network that brings together 2.8 billion users, it reaches more people than the population of China and India put together. While it offers its service for free, it gets access to users’ data – their images, words, likes, and dislikes – and tailors content to ensure users return again and again.

Ostensibly to safeguard human rights, it has removed a sitting US President from its platform, suspended Myanmar's army from its pages, and spotted suspicious activity by Chinese interests against Uyghur activists. At the same time, human rights groups and UN experts have accused the company of allowing its platform to be used to facilitate mass violence, as well as permitting the dissemination of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and promoting hatred.

Miranda Sissons, formerly of the International Centre for Transitional Justice and Human Rights Watch, joined Facebook in 2019 as the company’s first-ever Director for Human Rights. Sissons spoke with IHRB's Salil Tripathi about why the company has developed the new policy, what it means, and how it will be implemented. In a wide-ranging conversation that also deals with some of the thorny dilemmas the company faces, Sissons points out the limits of what she feels Facebook can and cannot do; where it can push back on government demands to take down content and those orders that it must comply with; and how it hopes to work with experts to protect freedom of expression and privacy online.

Watch or listen above, or you can stream on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Rosey Hurst on Repaying Recruitment Fees

Millions of migrant workers are having to pay to be recruited into jobs everyday. This is despite a long history of work by global brands, trade unions, NGOs, and others to improve the recruitment and employment process.

This is why like IHRB, many other organisations are working to promote a different model of recruitment based on the Employer Pays Principle – that no workers should pay for a job; the cost of recruitment should be born not by the worker but by the employer.

In this episode of Voices, IHRB’s Head of Migrant Workers programme Neill Wilkins speaks with Rosey Hurst, Chief Executive of Impactt, about the need to increase focus and action on the repayment of migrant workers' recruitment fees. Hurst highlights the work Impactt has done on 206 specific cases, which have informed the repayment of over a hundred million US dollars to 75,000 workers - a drop in the ocean of the overall amount of recruitment fees charged, and never reimbursed, to migrant workers.

Stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

About Impactt:

Founded in 1997, Impactt were founded in 1997 specialises in ethical trade, human rights, labour standards and international development – working with organisations to improve working conditions and livelihoods, across global supply chains. Read more about Impactt's standards for maximising the impact of repayment of recruitment fees

Kate Pike on the Mental Health of Stranded Seafarers

Hundreds of thousands of sea farers have been stranded at sea since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020. One of the Top 10 Business and Human Rights Issues for 2021, the global crew change crisis is now entering its second year.

In this episode of Voices, maritime expert Kate Pike speaks with IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn about urgent efforts to address mental health of seafarers still trapped at sea. Over 500 organisations have now signed the Neptune Declaration, calling for key worker status and priority vaccination for seafarers, collaboration between ship operators and charterers to facilitate crew changes, and air connectivity between key maritime hubs for seafarers, but it remains to be seen whether this will finally bring this crisis to an end.

Watch or stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Dr Kate Pike is Associate Professor Emeritus at Solent University and Director of Field Research, a company specialising extensively on the social science and human elements of the maritime industry. Kate is an experienced maritime researcher with applied expertise and project experience in seafarer’s welfare, gender equality and diversity, management and leadership and on-board safety cultures. Kate is currently leading the research element of the Social Interaction Matters Project, an ISWAN initiative and sponsored by the MCA and the Red Ensign Group.

Mairead Lavery on Export Finance and Just Transitions

In this episode of Voices, Mairead Lavery, CEO and President of Export Development Canada, talks about the role of overseas credit, insurance, and guarantees in the transition to a net-zero economy.

Internationally, export credit is worth around US$430 billion, wielding a profound effect on social, environmental, and governance (ESG) outcomes. With assets of US$60 billion, Export Development Canada (EDC) is one of the world’s largest export credit agencies, and Lavery is seeking to use its leverage to tackle both climate change and human rights.

In discussion with IHRB’s CEO John Morrison, Lavery discusses the importance of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to inform investment, credit, and insurance decisions throughout the finance sector. The challenge being to align human rights considerations with net-zero ambitions in order to enable energy transitions that benefit the workers and communities most affected. Lavery and Morrison also look ahead to the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Glasgow (COP26) in November 2021, and what role they foresee for ESG approaches in the deliberations.

Watch or stream above, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Halina Ward on Just Transitions

Climate action needs to happen fast. But it also needs to be participatory and fair. This is where the growing agenda around a ‘just’ transition to a zero-carbon future comes in.

In this episode of Voices, IHRB CEO John Morrison speaks with Halina Ward, author of IHRB's latest report "Just Transitions for All - Business, Human Rights, and Climate Action", about the ways that business and human rights good practice can strengthen implementation of just transitions.

Watch or stream above, or listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

On the Life and Legacy of Ken Saro Wiwa - The View from the Ground

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa. 

In this episode - The View from the Ground - Salil Tripathi talks with Ledum Mitee, who was Saro-Wiwa’s lawyer, detained with him, and mobilised international opinion for the Ogoni people, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ken’s daughter and distinguished writer based in London, and Austin Onuoha, a peace activist who works towards reconciliation in the Niger Delta.

They examine what Ken Saro Wiwa meant to people in Nigeria. The discussion focuses on the movement he built, the struggle he faced, the impact on his family, the family's view on activism, and how the Ogoni fight impacted the corporate accountability movement at home and abroad.

Watch or stream the audio above, or listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Background

Image: Flickr/Friends of the Earth

On November 10th 1995, nine men from the Ogoni community - Ken Saro Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, Saturday Dobee, Paul Levura, Nordu Eawo, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbookoo, John Kpuinen, and Baribor Bera - were executed in Nigeria. They were charged with the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, South African President Nelson Mandela, and other international leaders and organisations including the Commonwealth, had appealed to Nigeria’s military dictator Sani Abacha, to prevent the carrying out of the executions. Artists and writers rallied, but to no avail. There was witness tampering and allegations of witnesses being bribed. The trial had a pre-determined outcome.

The Ogoni Nine, as these men came to be known as, were fighting oil companies in Ogoniland – notably Shell – because they were concerned about environmental degradation and pollution; they were alarmed by the use of security forces against non-violent protesters; and they were outraged over the corruption that drained Nigerian wealth (a problem that persists). Shell was criticised for its inaction but defended itself. 

The executions shocked the international community. The cosmetics company Body Shop ran a spirited campaign for the Ogoni people. Amnesty International’s UK and Dutch sections began a dialogue with Shell, the culmination of which were Amnesty’s Human Rights Principles, which laid the foundation for similar conversations and approaches, eventually leading up to the mandate the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan created, of a Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, the role the Harvard professor John Ruggie played, who then consulted widely with businesses, governments, and the civil society and drafted the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which the UN Human Rights Council approved unanimously in 2011. The US Government worked with stakeholders and governments to initiate the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, aimed at ensuring that security forces comply with international human rights standards while protecting the people and assets of extractive industries. And the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative was created to make companies investing in the extractive sector more transparent about how they shared revenues, paid taxes, and made contractual commitments with host nations. These significant developments would probably have occurred in any case, but the Ogoni case focused international attention to address the challenges posed by business to human rights.

To be sure, it was not a new story. Corporations have long-been intertwined with states and the consequences have often been adverse for human rights. Slavery was possible because of colonisation, and colonial powers took over vast territories ostensibly to trade but in reality to dominate countries and markets around the world; companies were willing accomplices in some cases, and standard-bearers in other cases. Many companies had colluded with repugnant regimes such as Germany during the Nazi years in the 1930s and 1940s and South Africa during the apartheid years that began in 1948 and ended in 1991. Industrial disasters like the gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, killed thousands. In all those, and many other instances, including the way sweatshops operated in the developing world, business had a profoundly negative impact on human rights.

It was the case of the Ogoni people, of oil companies in the Niger Delta, which became the tipping point. Since then, there  have been several initiatives that have aimed to address the injustices. Those are not sufficient, but they are necessary.

More in this Series

As we mark the 25th year of the passing of the Ogoni Nine, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi (who has visited the Niger Delta in the past as researcher at Amnesty International and represented Amnesty at the drafting of the Voluntary Principles) presents a series of conversations about the significance of the struggle and impact of Ken Saro Wiwa and his allies:

• In The View from the Ground, Tripathi talks with Ledum Mitee, who was Saro-Wiwa’s lawyer, detained with him, and mobilised international opinion for the Ogoni people, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ken’s daughter and distinguished writer based in London, and Austin Onuoha, a peace activist who works towards reconciliation in the Niger Delta.

• In The View from Beyond - Tripathi speaks with Nnimmo Bassey, Rafto Laureate, human rights defender, poet, and environmental activist; Bronwen Manby who co-authored The Price of Oil, Human Rights Watch’s path-breaking research report on the violence in the Niger Delta; Paul Hoffman, who argued the Wiwa case before the US Supreme Court under the Alien Tort Statute; and Bennett Freeman, who  was a senior US State Department official who brought together oil and mining companies, governments, and international human rights groups to prepare the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights.

• In The View from an Ally, Tripathi is joined by Richard Boele, now at KPMG in Sydney, who worked at Body Shop during the 1990s and lead a spirited corporate campaign for the Ogoni people prior to Ken's murder.

On the Life and Legacy of Ken Saro Wiwa - The View from Beyond

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa. 

In this episode - The View from Beyond - Salil Tripathi speaks with Nnimmo Bassey, Rafto Laureate, human rights defender, poet, and environmental activist; Bronwen Manby who co-authored The Price of Oil, Human Rights Watch’s path-breaking research report on the violence in the Niger Delta; Paul Hoffman, who argued the Wiwa case before the US Supreme Court under the Alien Tort Statute; and Bennett Freeman, who  was a senior US State Department official who brought together oil and mining companies, governments, and international human rights groups to prepare the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights.

They discuss how the Ogoni struggle in Nigeria shaped the modern business and human rights movement; the litigations that followed; the lack of political and corporate accountability in an oil-rich nation where the military was a major factor, and; the state of human rights.

Watch or stream the audio above, or listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Background

On November 10th 1995, nine men from the Ogoni community - Ken Saro Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, Saturday Dobee, Paul Levura, Nordu Eawo, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbookoo, John Kpuinen, and Baribor Bera - were executed in Nigeria. They were charged with the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, South African President Nelson Mandela, and other international leaders and organisations including the Commonwealth, had appealed to Nigeria’s military dictator Sani Abacha, to prevent the carrying out of the executions. Artists and writers rallied, but to no avail. There was witness tampering and allegations of witnesses being bribed. The trial had a pre-determined outcome.

The Ogoni Nine, as these men came to be known as, were fighting oil companies in Ogoniland – notably Shell – because they were concerned about environmental degradation and pollution; they were alarmed by the use of security forces against non-violent protesters; and they were outraged over the corruption that drained Nigerian wealth (a problem that persists). Shell was criticised for its inaction but defended itself. 

The executions shocked the international community. The cosmetics company Body Shop ran a spirited campaign for the Ogoni people. Amnesty International’s UK and Dutch sections began a dialogue with Shell, the culmination of which were Amnesty’s Human Rights Principles, which laid the foundation for similar conversations and approaches, eventually leading up to the mandate the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan created, of a Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, the role the Harvard professor John Ruggie played, who then consulted widely with businesses, governments, and the civil society and drafted the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which the UN Human Rights Council approved unanimously in 2011. The US Government worked with stakeholders and governments to initiate the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, aimed at ensuring that security forces comply with international human rights standards while protecting the people and assets of extractive industries. And the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative was created to make companies investing in the extractive sector more transparent about how they shared revenues, paid taxes, and made contractual commitments with host nations. These significant developments would probably have occurred in any case, but the Ogoni case focused international attention to address the challenges posed by business to human rights.

To be sure, it was not a new story. Corporations have long-been intertwined with states and the consequences have often been adverse for human rights. Slavery was possible because of colonisation, and colonial powers took over vast territories ostensibly to trade but in reality to dominate countries and markets around the world; companies were willing accomplices in some cases, and standard-bearers in other cases. Many companies had colluded with repugnant regimes such as Germany during the Nazi years in the 1930s and 1940s and South Africa during the apartheid years that began in 1948 and ended in 1991. Industrial disasters like the gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, killed thousands. In all those, and many other instances, including the way sweatshops operated in the developing world, business had a profoundly negative impact on human rights.

It was the case of the Ogoni people, of oil companies in the Niger Delta, which became the tipping point. Since then, there  have been several initiatives that have aimed to address the injustices. Those are not sufficient, but they are necessary.

More in this Series

As we mark the 25th year of the passing of the Ogoni Nine, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi (who has visited the Niger Delta in the past as researcher at Amnesty International and represented Amnesty at the drafting of the Voluntary Principles) presents a series of conversations about the significance of the struggle and impact of Ken Saro Wiwa and his allies:

• In The View from the Ground, Tripathi talks with Ledum Mitee, who was Saro-Wiwa’s lawyer, detained with him, and mobilised international opinion for the Ogoni people, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ken’s daughter and distinguished writer based in London, and Austin Onuoha, a peace activist who works towards reconciliation in the Niger Delta.

• In The View from Beyond - Tripathi speaks with Nnimmo Bassey, Rafto Laureate, human rights defender, poet, and environmental activist; Bronwen Manby who co-authored The Price of Oil, Human Rights Watch’s path-breaking research report on the violence in the Niger Delta; Paul Hoffman, who argued the Wiwa case before the US Supreme Court under the Alien Tort Statute; and Bennett Freeman, who  was a senior US State Department official who brought together oil and mining companies, governments, and international human rights groups to prepare the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights.

• In The View from an Ally, Tripathi is joined by Richard Boele, now at KPMG in Sydney, who worked at Body Shop during the 1990s and lead a spirited corporate campaign for the Ogoni people prior to Ken's murder.

On the Life and Legacy of Ken Saro Wiwa - The View from an Ally

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa. 

In this episode - The View from an Ally - Salil Tripathi talks with Richard Boele, now at KPMG in Sydney, who worked at Body Shop during the 1990s and lead a spirited corporate campaign for the Ogoni people.

Stream above, or listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, YouTube or your favourite podcast player

Background

On November 10th 1995, nine men from the Ogoni community - Ken Saro Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, Saturday Dobee, Paul Levura, Nordu Eawo, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbookoo, John Kpuinen, and Baribor Bera - were executed in Nigeria. They were charged with the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, South African President Nelson Mandela, and other international leaders and organisations including the Commonwealth, had appealed to Nigeria’s military dictator Sani Abacha, to prevent the carrying out of the executions. Artists and writers rallied, but to no avail. There was witness tampering and allegations of witnesses being bribed. The trial had a pre-determined outcome.

The Ogoni Nine, as these men came to be known as, were fighting oil companies in Ogoniland – notably Shell – because they were concerned about environmental degradation and pollution; they were alarmed by the use of security forces against non-violent protesters; and they were outraged over the corruption that drained Nigerian wealth (a problem that persists). Shell was criticised for its inaction but defended itself. 

The executions shocked the international community. The cosmetics company Body Shop ran a spirited campaign for the Ogoni people. Amnesty International’s UK and Dutch sections began a dialogue with Shell, the culmination of which were Amnesty’s Human Rights Principles, which laid the foundation for similar conversations and approaches, eventually leading up to the mandate the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan created, of a Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, the role the Harvard professor John Ruggie played, who then consulted widely with businesses, governments, and the civil society and drafted the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which the UN Human Rights Council approved unanimously in 2011. The US Government worked with stakeholders and governments to initiate the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, aimed at ensuring that security forces comply with international human rights standards while protecting the people and assets of extractive industries. And the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative was created to make companies investing in the extractive sector more transparent about how they shared revenues, paid taxes, and made contractual commitments with host nations. These significant developments would probably have occurred in any case, but the Ogoni case focused international attention to address the challenges posed by business to human rights.

To be sure, it was not a new story. Corporations have long-been intertwined with states and the consequences have often been adverse for human rights. Slavery was possible because of colonisation, and colonial powers took over vast territories ostensibly to trade but in reality to dominate countries and markets around the world; companies were willing accomplices in some cases, and standard-bearers in other cases. Many companies had colluded with repugnant regimes such as Germany during the Nazi years in the 1930s and 1940s and South Africa during the apartheid years that began in 1948 and ended in 1991. Industrial disasters like the gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, killed thousands. In all those, and many other instances, including the way sweatshops operated in the developing world, business had a profoundly negative impact on human rights.

It was the case of the Ogoni people, of oil companies in the Niger Delta, which became the tipping point. Since then, there  have been several initiatives that have aimed to address the injustices. Those are not sufficient, but they are necessary.

More in this Series

As we mark the 25th year of the passing of the Ogoni Nine, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi (who has visited the Niger Delta in the past as researcher at Amnesty International and represented Amnesty at the drafting of the Voluntary Principles) presents a series of conversations about the significance of the struggle and impact of Ken Saro Wiwa and his allies:

• In The View from the Ground, Tripathi talks with Ledum Mitee, who was Saro-Wiwa’s lawyer, detained with him, and mobilised international opinion for the Ogoni people, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ken’s daughter and distinguished writer based in London, and Austin Onuoha, a peace activist who works towards reconciliation in the Niger Delta.

• In The View from Beyond - Tripathi speaks with Nnimmo Bassey, Rafto Laureate, human rights defender, poet, and environmental activist; Bronwen Manby who co-authored The Price of Oil, Human Rights Watch’s path-breaking research report on the violence in the Niger Delta; Paul Hoffman, who argued the Wiwa case before the US Supreme Court under the Alien Tort Statute; and Bennett Freeman, who  was a senior US State Department official who brought together oil and mining companies, governments, and international human rights groups to prepare the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights.

• In The View from an Ally, Tripathi is joined by Richard Boele, now at KPMG in Sydney, who worked at Body Shop during the 1990s and lead a spirited corporate campaign for the Ogoni people prior to Ken's murder.

Margot Wallström on her Role as Chair of IHRB’s International Advisory Council

In this episode of Voices, John Morrison welcomes Margot Wallström to her new role as the Chair of IHRB’s International Advisory Council. 

As the European Commission gets serious about mandatory human rights due diligence for companies, the former Swedish Foreign Minister talks about businesses, why we need them, and why it is important to have a balanced environment where businesses can continue to contribute to society whilst respecting human rights - in particular workers' and women's rights.

She also touches on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic's implications and impacts on the rights of women. 

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Kiran Pereira on the Global Sand Crisis

Sand is the world’s most extracted and traded natural resource other than water, and the main ingredient in concrete, asphalt, and glass. The United Nations Environment Programme describes the overuse of sand as "one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century".

In this Voices conversation, Annabel Short of IHRB’s Built Environment Programme talks with Kiran Pereira of Sand Stories, an organisation dedicated to exploring the human and environmental impacts of sand extraction. Kiran shares why and how industry, governments, and investors need to pay urgent attention to the impacts of sand mining – an overlooked non-renewable resource. 

As construction of cities and infrastructure continues to boom, Kiran is documenting the human and environmental costs of sand mining – from the killings of activists by sand “mafias”, to the loss of homes and livelihoods, to major impacts on biodiversity and climate. She is also highlighting multiple innovative approaches to reduce the use of sand and to develop and scale up the use of sand alternatives.

For more information, see sandstories.org and UNEP’s report “Sand and Sustainability: Finding new solutions for environmental governance of global sand resources”

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Jacqueline Smith on the 300,000 Seafarers Stranded at Sea 

COVID-19 restrictions have meant that many ports' ship operators are unwilling or unable to allow crew to come ashore. The result is an ever-increasing numbers of crew overdue for relief but unable to be repatriated. Described by Bloomberg as the "worst shipping crisis in decades" that is putting "lives and trade at risk", current conservative estimates put the number of seafarers stranded on board ships between 300,000 to 400,00. 

With the theme of World Maritime Day 2020 centred on ‘sustainable shipping for a sustainable planet’, IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn speaks to Jacqueline Smith, Maritime Coordinator at the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). Their conversation covers the urgent need for governments to address the seafarers’ humanitarian crisis, and for companies - be they cargo owners, charterers, or ship owners and operators themselves – to use their leverage to ensure this vast, vital, but often invisible workforce is protected, prioritised, and given safe passage home.

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William Gois on an Urgent Justice Mechanism for Migrant Workers

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Globally, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 195 million jobs will be wiped out as a result of the pandemic. In the Middle East region alone, an estimated 5 million jobs will be lost, with many of those jobs held by migrant workers. Consequently, millions of migrant workers in destination countries have experience job loss, or non-payment of wages, been forced by employers to take unpaid leave, and confined to poor living conditions.

In this Voices conversation, William Gois, Project Coordinator at Migrant Forum in Asia, speaks to IHRB’s Neill Wilkins about the need for an urgent justice mechanism for migrant workers – a call to action for governments, UN agencies, and business to come together to address the plight of millions of migrant workers experiencing wage theft and repatriation as a result of pandemic-related job loss.

Watch and share the urgent justice mechanism video campaign through the links below:

• Facebook: https://bit.ly/34Xorak
• Twitter: https://bit.ly/2ETXqtI
• LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2QIXor4

Find out more about the urgent justice mechanism on Justice For Wage Theft

Deep Dive - Richard Howitt on the Record and Future of the Movement

In this Voices deep dive, former Member of the European Parliament and CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), Richard Howitt speaks with IHRB’s John Morrison about his own experience battling an intense case of COVID-19 as well as his reflections on the track record and future of the business and human rights movement.

Scanning the horizon, Howitt and Morrison share their prognoses on global trade and the peculiar case of the UK post-Brexit, the warming reception to mandatory human rights due diligence regulation, and the wake up call that business should be heeding from the Black Lives Matter movement.

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As part of events to mark our 10th anniversary in 2019, IHRB prepared a report looking back at what has been achieved and what remains to be done in making respect for human rights an integral part of everyday business practice. The report also examined recent developments as well as new opportunities and threats to the business and human rights movement. | Read now

Mary Lawlor on Human Rights Defenders

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At the commencement of her new mandate as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor speaks to IHRB’s Salil Tripathi about her plans for the work. She speaks about the shrinking space for human rights defenders, of the intimidation and threats they face. She will focus on the violence against human rights defenders, including murders committed with impunity, as well as the forgotten prisoners kept in prolonged detention. From business, she expects greater responsibility and commitment to respecting human rights. 

Mary Lawlor teaches at the Centre for Social Innovation at the School of Business at Trinity College Dublin. She founded Front Line Defenders, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders in 2001, which has concentrated on supporting human rights defenders at risk. Front Line Defenders (with whom IHRB collaborated and published a joint report on business and human rights defenders in 2015), has received the King Baudoin International Prize in 2007 and the UN Human Rights Prize in 2018. Prior to that, she headed Amnesty International’s Irish Section from 1988-2000, and was its chair 1983-1987.

Vani Saraswathi on Migrant Domestic Workers

Many migrant workers are employed as domestic workers – as gardeners, cleaners, carers – relied upon increasingly by their household employers as government investment in education, elderly care, and other social services diminishes year on year. Their remittances are important for their home countries, and more importantly, for their families. They work with few rights, and companies, whose expatriate employees often recruit these workers, have felt constrained about whether and how they can intervene.

In this conversation, Vani Saraswathi of Migrant-Rights.org tells IHRB's Salil Tripathi why companies should be actively engaged with the workers' conditions, even if they are not their direct employers, and why they should take the responsibility seriously. She calls for the pressing need for improved national labour protections for domestic workers in the Gulf and globally, because their risks have increased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many of them out-of-work and stranded. She offers practical steps that can be taken to safeguard their rights. 

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Antoine Bernard on Business in Times of Fragility

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As the world comes to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are acting in an uncoordinated manner and the international community is looking to companies to act responsibly. In this conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Antoine Bernard, who has headed the International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym FIDH, and has examined the role of business with regard to human rights, speaks of the pressing need for companies to adhere to international standards.

The pandemic, he notes, comes at a time when business credibility has been tested severely, because globalisation has enabled companies to operate without clear rules regarding their responsibility. In situations of armed conflict or heightened tensions, for example, the dissemination of hate speech is enabled by technology, and groups and communities subject to attacks have few remedies available to safeguard their rights.

Amina Bouayach on Business and Human Rights in Morocco

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Amina Bouayach is the President of the National Human Rights Council in Morocco. She has been Morocco's ambassador to Sweden and Latvia and the Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (known by its French acronym FIDH), and an outspoken advocate for human rights in Morocco. She has worked against the death penalty and been on missions to Tunisia and Libya during the Arab Spring.

In a recent conversation in Paris with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Bouayach spoke of the need for greater corporate accountability for human rights. She spoke of the Moroccan initiative for a National Action Plan (NAP) on business and human rights and the rights of workers. Reacting to the criticism from Western Sahara groups which oppose Morocco's rule in the region, she stressed the need for peaceful ways of dealing with the situation. Morocco asserts Western Sahara is part of Morocco, which many Sahrawi people challenge, and the United Nations has expressed critical comments on the political situation. Violence is not the way forward, she said, and the respect for freedom of opinion must be safeguarded.

Jason Ng on Protest and Free Speech in Corporations

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Ever since the Hong Kong government introduced a controversial law that would establish rules for extradition between China and Hong Kong, an overwhelmingly large number of people in Hong Kong have been protesting against it. 

While the Hong Kong government has since withdrawn the controversial extradition rules, the demonstrations have not stopped. Companies in Hong Kong - local and multinational - faced a unique challenge at the time of the protests: should they allow their employees to express their views peacefully and participate in the protests? Initially, many did; but following pressure from Beijing and in some cases from shareholders, companies began to restrict their employees from openly associating themselves with the protests. 

Of the many such instances, perhaps the most well-known case involves Jason Ng, a corporate lawyer who worked at a leading international bank. A blog he wrote, critical of the law, caught the eye of the authorities in Beijing, and the situation escalated, leading to Ng leaving the bank. 

In this conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi at a literature festival in Bergen, Norway, Ng explains what happened in his personal case, the limits of freedom of expression, and how companies should navigate the space, ensuring freedom of expression of their employees. It is important for companies to seek external help, he says, because complying with unjust laws serves neither the company nor the society. Business has the responsibility to respect human rights in all contexts, but lacks the capacity to act on its own, he adds.

Morten Kjaerum on Human Rights Cities

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A Human Rights City is a place where local government, civil society, private sector, and other stakeholders ensure the application of international human rights standards. As Morten Kjaerum of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute says, it is in the cities and local communities that life happens - whether urban or rural area, it is at the local level where social, political, and economic issues come into being, where policies are translated into concrete actions, and where rights are vindicated. Here, Raoul Wallenberg's Morten Kjaerum speaks with IHRB's Haley St. Dennis about the opportunity the rights-based approach offers to the full range of actors involved throughout the lifecycle of the built environment - from planning and finance through to management and re-use.

Morten Kjaerum has been Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden since 2015. Prior to that, he was the first Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in Vienna from 2008 to 2015. He is currently also Chair of The Board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).

Susan Kaplan on Social Equity as Buildings “Go Green”

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Almost 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, both from the construction process and when they are in use. This has led to a rapid rise in “green building” initiatives and certification schemes. The World Green Building Council has called for “radical cross-sector coordination to revolutionize the buildings and construction sector towards a net zero future.” However, action to reduce the environmental impacts of a project can often overlook its social impacts: whether this involves displacing local communities, overlooking accessibility for disabled users, or the exploitation of workers on the construction site and throughout the materials supply chain. 

Annabel Short spoke with Susan Kaplan of BuildingWrx and the US Green Building Council’s Social Equity Working Group, about the ways that built environment professionals – from planners, to developers, to architects – can, and must, prioritize the needs and aspirations of local communities. The US Green Building Council has developed social equity pilot credits and a checklist to help make this happen. “It’s a messy process”, Susan says. “But if they really started to understand the risks of not looking at a project from different perspectives, they will see that it makes so much more sense to engage at the beginning.”

Debbie Fordyce on Migrant Workers in Singapore

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In this podcast, published on International Migrants Day 2019, Debbie Fordyce, President of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) talks to IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn about how large recruitment fees paid by migrant workers for low paid jobs in Singapore can lead to excessive overtime that can undermine their health and safety.

There are just under a million 'work permit' migrant workers in Singapore.  This is the lowest category of visa entry, and places many restrictions on the workers (although there is no minimum wage restriction).  Many of these workers pay large recruitment fees in their country of origin for such low wage jobs, and arrive in Singapore to work in the domestic, construction or shipyard industries already in considerable debt.  These debts, together with heavy government levies on the employers, often lead to excessive overtime (sometimes up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week), with the concomitant health and safety risks associated with working long hours. When workers are injured, they often struggle to get treatment, help or compensation from their employers. 

TWC2 is an NGO in Singapore committed to assisting migrant workers in the shipyard industry who are unable to work yet unable to leave Singapore, providing hot food and sometimes advice to over 2,000 a year mainly Bangladeshi and Indian shipyard workers. Debbie began working with resettlement of Indochinese refugees in the USA in 1979, before coming to work with the Indochina refugee resettlement program in Singapore and Indonesia in 1980. She began volunteering with TWC2 in 2005, and now coordinates its Cuff Road project She also heads the subcommittee that oversees medical assistance for injured and ill clients.

Rohini Lakshané on Internet Shutdowns

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Internet shutdowns have increased in their frequency around the world. Many countries routinely deny access to vast parts of the population, by requiring internet service providers to shut down services for extensive periods. This has significant impacts on human rights - to freedom of expression and assembly, but also to seek receive and impart information, as well as to trade and to education and health. What was once seen as an aberration is becoming a norm. Countries including Pakistan, Myanmar, parts of China, and India have shut down the Internet (in some cases slowing down access) with severe consequences for people. In India it used to be sporadic, such as in states in the north-east, but since August, the former state of Jammu and Kashmir (since bifurcated into two federally-administered areas) has had limited access to the outside world. India has a long history of internet shutdowns. 

Rohini Lakshané is a technologist by training, public policy researcher, Wikimedian and digital security trainer. She has worked on several research and advocacy projects on the intersection of technology, policy, and civil liberties. Her body of work encompasses diverse territories such as the application of technology and policy to solve issues of gender inequity and violence; access to knowledge; openness; patent reform; making tech spaces diverse and inclusive; and the cross-hairs of gender, sexuality and the Internet. She also conducts digital security trainings for journalists, activists, and at-risk civil society groups. She has served on interational juries honouring excellence in online activism. For her research, she was profiled in the 2019 book “31 Fantastic Adventures in Science: Women Scientists in India”. She cowrote a report on Internet shutdowns in the Indian state of Manipur, which has witnessed insurgency. Her report focuses on the gendered impact of such shutdowns. While Indian law is firm in requiring companies to comply with government instructions, Lakshané argues that companies should explore collective responses to the problem.

Panel Discussion on the State of Business and Human Rights

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In the past quarter century, global civil society organisations and policy-makers have increasingly focused on corporate conduct and examined impacts on human rights. Following the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011, governments have introduced some regulations, NGOs have run campaigns, some CSOs and governments are seeking to draft a new treaty to address business and human rights issues, companies have proactively developed policies, and multistakeholder initiatives have explored new ways of working to address common challenges. There are of course new challenges, including those posed by companies from the parts of the world which have not been part of the global human rights and business discourse, the use of technology and its wider prevalence, and the climate crisis.

In November, IHRB's Salil Tripathi held a discussion with Froydis Cameron-Johansson, group head of international and government relations at Anglo American, Marcela Manubens, global vice president at Unilever for integrated social sustainability, Mark Taylor, post doctoral fellow at the faculty of law at the University of Oslo, and Pia Rudolfsson Goyer, an independent expert on business and human rights in Norway, at the University of Bergen in Norway, where IHRB runs an annual masters course with Rafto Foundation on business and human rights. In the discussion, the experts discussed the progress thus far, the challenges ahead, and the need for a consensus-driven approach.

Scott Edwards on AI, Data Use, and Responsible Social Media

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With fake news proliferating and deep fake videos making it harder to separate truth from falsehood, the challenge for investigators - state prosecutors, human rights researchers, and journalists - has become harder. Amnesty International has invested resources to understand the impact of technology on human rights better and examined bombing in Syria and misogynistic attacks on women politicians and journalists on the Internet. Unregulated technology can have adverse impacts on human rights. 

Scott Edwards is the Senior Sdvisor at Amnesty International's Research Directorate and teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. An expert on science and technology, his past work has included research on early warning systems and responses to humanitarian crises. In a conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Edwards talks about the need for human rights groups to use technology more effectively and why it is important to make tech companies accountable for their impacts.

Erik Hagen and Asria Mohamed on Lack of Corporate Consent in Western Sahara

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Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara is illegal under international law. Businesses have continued to operate in Western Sahara despite international opinion, including from the United Nations, posing profound questions about business activity in Western Sahara. International law does not prohibit business activity in occupied territories, but there are strict rules to be followed, including ensuring that the operations are with the consent of the local people and 'plunder', 'pillage' and other forms of profiteering are violation of international laws. Human rights groups, such as the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), have been monitoring business conduct in Western Sahara and investigated corporate conduct, including naming companies that act in ways that undermine international standards. 

Salil Tripathi of IHRB spoke to Erik Hagen and Asria Mohamed of WSRW recently, where they spoke about the conditions in which refugees live, the manner in which business takes place, the conditions under which trade and investment can take place, and the roles and responsibilities of companies that operate in occupied territories. Operating in such territories raises significant challenges for companies which must undertake enhanced due diligence. Asria is a journalist who grew up in a refugee camp and now lives in Norway. Erik chairs WSRW and has undertaken investigations and edited a book, Profit over Peace in Western Sahara.

Deepika Rao on Female Crew Aboard Merchant Oil Tankers

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Deepika Rao is a Programme Director at Cividep in Bangalore, where she campaigns on behalf of female migrant garment workers (on which she has spoken in a previous podcast) .  In her former career, however, Deepika spent five years as a marine engineer aboard merchant oil tankers, amongst almost exclusively male crews.  In this podcast, Deepika talks to IHRB's Francesca Fairbairn about life as a female crew member aboard these vessels.  She describes the kinds of discrimination and harassment women face, the regulations the Indian government has put in place to reduce gender discrimination, and the importance of monitoring to ensure shipping companies implement the regulations. Deepika also touches on more general human rights risks in the shipping transport industry. 

Deepika has been working with Cividep for the past four years. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marine Engineering and a Masters in Social Entrepreneurship. 

Natalie Galea and Louise Chappell on Human Rights in the Built Environment

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Scientia Professor Louise Chappell (pictured right) is Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW Sydney. A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2010-14), Louise’s research interests are in the areas of women’s rights; gender, politics and institutions and comparative federalism and public policy.  Natalie Galea (pictured left) is a leading interdisciplinary researcher in gender justice, business and human rights. Her primary research interests are in gender equality in male dominated sectors and gender violence in sport. 

In this conversation, Natalie and Louise speak with IHRB's Haley St Dennis about the built environment. These are the places where we live, where we work, and which have everything to do with our ability to lead healthy, fulfilling lives. The three discuss the construction sector in particular, focusing on the steps the industry in Australia is taking to better incorporate rights-based approaches at the earliest stage of a project, as well as the importance of taking a broader lifecycle approach to the built environment. This is an important message that the Australian Human Rights Institute, IHRB, Rafto Foundation, and Raoul Wallenberg Institute are advocating as part of a new coalition.

Abduweli Ayup on Government Use of Facial Recognition Technology

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Abduweli Ayup is an Uyghur linguist currently living in exile in Bergen, Norway.  He was arrested in Kashgar in August 2013 by the economic investigation team of Tianshan District, Ürümqi City and accused of false funding and illegally raising funds for his proposed schools, which promoted Uyghur language. He was incommunicado for nine months. He was not formally charged until May 2014. After a one-day trial in July, a month later the court convicted him and his associates of having "committed a crime of abusing public money". (He had sought funds to set up schools). None of the donors had filed any complaint. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $13,000.

Educated in the United States, Ayup was released a few months later. He managed to leave China via Turkey and is now a writer in exile, supported by the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN). He has been investigating the use of facial recognition technology to separate ethnic groups in China, in particular Uyghurs. In this conversation with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi in Bergen, Ayup speaks of the widespread use of facial recognition. He does not advocate companies to leave China but urges them to use their leverage and influence to bring about change in Chjna and to stand up for the rights of their employees.

Banner photo: flickr/watchsmart

Mohna Ansari on Human Rights Issues in Nepal

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Nepal has had a turbulent past. The picture-postcard country nestled in the Himalaya from where mountaineers start to scale the highest peaks in the world has seen bitter conflict and faces significant human rights challenges. In this conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Mohna Ansari, commissioner at Nepal's Human Rights Commission, talks about the challenges faced by the landless and those facing discrimination. She also stresses the importance for companies to act responsibly by adhering to international standards as Nepal rebuilds its economy after years of conflict and a devastating earthquake.

She also focuses on the rights of migrant workers - many Nepalis seek work abroad - and how the Commission hopes to address concerns about corporate conduct. Ansari is one of Nepal's leading human rights activists, the only female attorney from the minority Muslim community. She is a commissioner at Nepal's Human Rights Commission, having earlier been a member of the national women's commission. Born in Nepalganj, she has been a journalist and worked at Amnesty International in Nepal. After graduating in law, she has worked with the Nepal Bar Association, and later with development agenciesand she specialises in women empowerment, social inclusion, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution.She has received the Suprabal Jana Sewa Shree from Nepal's President in 2012 and the Celebrating Womanhood Navadevi Award which recognises female heroes of Nepal.

Agnes Callamard on Corporate Responsibility in Saudi Arabia

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The brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi columnist, at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last October shocked the world. Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur for extra-judicial, summary, and arbitrary executions, investigated the murder and has published a chilling report concluding that there is credible evidence that high-level officials of Saudi Arabia were involved with the planning and execution of the murder and calling for further investigation and prosecution.

In her report she had specific recommendations for the business sector, in particular public relations and communication firms that help countries manage their reputations, and companies offering surveillance technology. These companies can do business with Saudi Arabia, but they must undertake due diligence to ensure that they do not expose themselves to the risk of being complicit in human rights abuses. In this podcast with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Callamard speaks of the report, what's expected of companies, and what the international community needs to do to ensure greater accountability.

Callamard is director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression Initiative (where Salil sits on its international panel of experts). She was earlier Executive Director of Article 19, a British human rights organisation that promotes free expression, and before that, at Amnesty International she was Chef de Cabinet of Secretary-General Pierre Sane.
 

Han Dongfang on Chinese Labour Rights

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China has prospered enormously in the last four decades, since Deng Xiaoping came to power and made changes to open the Chinese economy to global trade and investment. Today, China is an economic power. But China offers little protection to workers' rights, and trade unions in China face significant challenges. Wildcat strikes have become more common, and Chinese workers are demanding the rights to form unions and collective bargaining. In this podcast, Han Dongfang discusses how Chinese workers have become more empowered to protest lack of labour rights, but they are still greatly limited.

Han Dongfang is Executive Director at China Labour Bulletin in Hong Kong. He has been a prominent advocate for workers' rights in China for several decades. He formed China's first independent labour union - his union was disbanded during the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, and he was jailed for 22 months. He fell ill during his prison term, and was allowed to leave for the US for medical treatment. He returned to China, when he was arrested again and expelled to Hong Kong, where he now lives. Han remains optimistic of the challenges ahead. Unions seek solutions, he says, in this conversation marking May Day with IHRB's Salil Tripathi.
 

Jennifer Zerk on Human Rights Impacts Assessments in International Trade Agreements

Part 1 Part 2

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The human rights impacts of trade can be both positive and negative. Governments want to understand them better, and companies committed to undertaking rigorous due diligence would want a clearer idea about how their activities affect the rights of workers and communities. Civil society organisations too want to know more about the effects of specific policy measures that increase - or reduce - trade between countries. However, human rights impact assessment of trade is an inexact science, because connecting a specific policy measure, or the activities of one company, with any specific impact - positive or negative - is not simple.
 
In this podcast, human rights expert Jennifer Zerk speaks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the state of play in this field. She recently wrote a report for the Royal Institute for International Affairs, or Chatham House, the independent policy think tank in the UK, where she examines existing impact assessments, explores their capability and limitations, and proposes a way forward for practitioners.

The podcast is in two parts.  In Part 1 Jennifer and Salil discuss the key findings of the research, who should carry out human rights impacts assessments - states or corporations, and when during the trade agreement negotiations they should be carried out. In Part 2, they discuss whether any human rights impact assessments have influenced policy changes, who should pay for them, and what expertise is required.

Deepika Rao on Garment Workers in Bangalore

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In this podcast, Deepika Rao, Programme Director of Cividep, India, talks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the living and working conditions of female migrant workers in the garment industry in Bangalore. She discusses Cividep's research on the hostels that house the female migrant workers, many of whom are underage. Deepika describes how these women have travelled very long distances from their home villages and are transported into an alien culture. They do not speak the language, are often not aware of their rights and have no social groups to fall back on. Their movement is very restricted, due to fear of gender-based violence. Cividep has undertaken speaker tours in order to inform brands of these conditions in their supply chains in an attempt to engage them to act. Cividep also campaigns for these workers to be better informed of their rights, either through unions or other NGOs, in order to prevent circular migration and human rights violations. 

Deepika has been working with Cividep for the past four years. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marine Engineering and a Masters in Social Entrepreneurship. Her previous work experience has been that of working on merchant oil tankers as a maintenance engineer. Cividep educates workers, studies effects of corporate conduct, initiates dialogue with stakeholders, and advocates for policy change.

Juan Pablo Salazar on Disabilities and Sport

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In this podcast, Juan Pablo Salazar talks to IHRB’s Guido Battaglia about the role of sport as a platform and catalyst for fostering the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities in society. The discussion addresses in particular the role of the Paralympic movement, the progress that has been made so far and the challenges that still need to be addressed to ensure participation in sport for all people with disabilities.

Originally from Bogota, Colombia, Juan Pablo Salazar is a passionate global activist for the rights of persons with disabilities, with emphasis in sports and communication. He currently serves as a Governing Board member of the International Paralympic Committee. Salazar is the founder of the first wheelchair rugby club in Colombia, and has also served as Chef de Mission of the Colombian Delegation for the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Paralympic Games, President of the Colombian Sports Federation for People with Physical Disabilities and President of the Colombian Paralympic Committee. In the human rights field, he has served as Founder of the Arcangeles Foundation, President of the National Council on Disability, and Director of the Presidential Plan for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in the Presidency of Colombia. Currently, he is Vice President of the Inter-American Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Maryam Al Khawaja on Businesses Operating in Saudi

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Maryam Al-Khawaja is a human rights defender from Bahrain and has been a leading voice on human rights in the Gulf. She is currently a human rights advisor and sits in the boards of International Service for Human Rights and Urgent Action Fund. She formerly served as the Co-Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights and the Acting President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

On a recent visit to Bergen, Norway where Maryam was part of the faculty of IHRB's course on business and human rights (which it runs with Rafto Foundation at the University of Bergen), Maryam spoke to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the disappearance and alleged murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. Noting that many companies have pulled out of an investment conference in Saudi Arabia, Maryam speaks of business responsibility to respect human rights, and how companies should assess the human rights record of countries with which they do business. While remaining realistic about what the episode means for political changes in Saudi Arabia, she calls it a turning point.

Damion Thomas on the 1968 Olympic Protest

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In this podcast, Damion Thomas talks to IHRB’s Haley St. Dennis about the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Olympic protest by Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, and John Carlos. After winning the gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively in the 200 metre dash, Smith and Carlos raised their fists, heads down and shoeless during the entirety of the US national anthem in the medal ceremony. Norman wore a badge supporting the Olympic Project for Human Rights. All three athletes faced immediate and lasting criticism for mixing politics with sport. They were booed by the crowd, Smith and Carlos were banned from the remainder of the Games, and all three athletes faced significant impacts to their employability and livelihoods because of their choice to amplify conversations around race relations and equality through the power of their global sporting platforms.

Damion Thomas is the Curator of Sports for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He tells stories through the lens of the African American experience, to help all Americans think about who they are as a country, what they value and how they connect.

Image: Flickr/PennState

Lazarus Tamana on the Ogoni struggle in Nigeria

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Lazarus Tamana of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) describes the continuing struggle of the Ogoni people against environmental and human rights violations of oil extraction activities that have devasted the Niger Delta.  He recounts the history of the struggle, from the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 up to the latest legal victory in the London courts in 2017. He believes that the only way to hold companies to account is to have enforceable international legal standards. 

Series on Business, Equality, and Non-Discrimination

Gender-based discrimination is endemic to society and found in every country; no company is immune to the risks. From the C-Suite to the shopfloor, women are often underpaid, often denied positions of power, and often unable to influence meaningfully how the organisation operates. Junior female executives' careers are often stalled by the glass ceiling; women are usually outnumbered in boardrooms, if present at all. At the floor of factories, where they may form an overwhelming majority, women can be subject to bullying, harassment, and sometimes sexual violence. These vulnerabilities can multiply when they involve intersecting forms of discrimination - such as when the women are from ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities, have disabilities, or are in same-sex relationships for example.

In this podcast mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, IHRB's Salil Tripathi talks about these dynamics with six experts to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

• Srilatha Batliwala speaks of the need to change the deep culture of an organisation;
• Nazma Akter reminds us of the importance of listening to women on the shopfloor;
• Harpreet Kaur speaks of the need for gender impact assessments;
• Sanyu Awori points out the difficulties faced by women of colour and the inability of corporations to apply standards across countries;
• Laya Vasudevan highlights the issues faced by the transgender community; and
• Virginia Bras Gomes notes the complexities of extraterritoriality and the role of the UN and its monitoring mechanisms in achieving gender parity.

Virginia Bras Gomes on Remedies for Gender-based Human Rights Abuses

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In this podcast, Virginia Bras Gomes talks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the challenges companies face while operating in diverse environments, with different laws and different jurisdictions, in developing remedies for gender-based human rights abuses. Virginia recognises that states, whose primary responsibility it is to protect human rights, often plead inability to advance women's rights citing cultural relativist arguments and claiming exceptionalism. But she stresses the universality of human rights, and urges companies to do more. She cites two useful general comments from the committee - GC 23, on the right to just and favourable conditions of work, and GC 24, on state obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business and human rights.

Virginia chairs the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. She is also senior social policy adviser in the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security in Portugal. She has been on the board of UN agencies in Portugal as well as a member of the Portuguese National Human Rights Commission. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Sanyu Awori on Gender and Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

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Sanyu Awori, programme officer at the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) in Kuala Lumpur, speaks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the gaps between corporate policies and performance with regard to respect for women's rights. While there has been progress in some areas, companies need to do much more. Women in developing countries working in supply chains of multinational corporations remain disadvantaged despite state-of-the-art policies designed at the headquarters. When race, religion, disability, and other dimensions are added, the woman at the centre of the intersectionality is acutely vulnerable to exploitation. 

IWRAW  contributes to the progressive interpretation, universalisation, and implementation of women's human rights through the lens of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international human rights instruments. At IWRAW, Sanyu coordinates their work on business and women’s human rights. Her work focuses on amplifying women’s voices and lived experiences in the Global South, and influence regional and international processes to integrate women’s human rights in strategies to address corporate responsibility and accountability. Kenyan-born Sanyu has earlier worked with the  Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative based in New Delhi, where she specialised in human rights advocacy in Commonwealth countries. She graduated with a Masters in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Laya Vasudevan on the Progress of Transgender Rights in India

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In this podcast, Laya Vasudevan talks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the landmark ruling in the Indian Supreme Court in 2014 which gave transgender men and women and hijras (a traditional South Asian transgender community) the legal status of third gender. She discusses how her organisation, Article 39, conducted public hearings across India in preparation for the case. She also discusses details of the ruling, and what companies can do to improve access to, and treatment at, work for transgender people in India. 

Laya is the director of the Delhi-based Centre for Legal Aid and Rights, which works on women's rights, health rights, and access to justice. In 2014, the centre played a major role in the landmark case, NALSA vs. Union of India, which advanced and protected the rights of the transgender community in India. She has also been a member of the expert committee appointed by the Indian Government on transgender rights, and consulted with IDLO on sexual orientation and gender identity in India. Laya has studied in India and the UK, and was a Chevening Human Rights Scholar in the UK in 1999-2000. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Nazma Akter on Mistreatment of Women Workers in the Supply Chain

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Nazma Akter started work at a garment factory in Bangladesh at 11. She began organising her colleagues and protesting against injustice at 14, and today leads AWAJ Foundation, a Bangladeshi organisation that promotes workers' welfare. She is also founder and president of Sommilito Garment Sramik Federation, an affiliated union with over 70,000 garment workers as members, and an alternate for IndustriALL, a global union.

In this podcast, Nazma talks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about the lack of respect for women's rights in the supply chain. Both brands and consumers take advantage of the lack of political and social structure in manufacturing countries, at the expense of women. She notes progress in the conduct of many companies, particularly after a series of major accidents in Bangladeshi factories, but much remains to be done. Both attitudinal change and stricter enforcement of laws are necessary to bring about change, she says. Only a system that recognises women's rights will enable their empowerment.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Harpreet Kaur on Business and Gender in Southeast Asia

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Harpreet Kaur is a gender, workplace, and human rights professional with over thirteen years of experience in research, advocacy and communication. She is Deputy Director of the Genpact Centre for women’s leadership (GCWL) at Ashoka University in India, which aims to steer the global thinking on ‘women, workplace & rights’.  Harpreet is also the founding member of India’s Human Rights & Business Network, and on the advisory panel of India Responsible Business Forum.

In this podcast, Harpreet talks to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about achieving gender equality in the workplace.  In particular, she discusses the outcomes of a consultation hosted by the GCWL in February 2018 on how to apply the gender lens to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Held on behalf of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, the consultation brought together delegates from more than 30 countries in South East Asia. Harpreet describes the key outcomes of this consultation – that businesses need to carry out rigorous gender impact assessments to identify gender dynamics at multiple levels, but that they also need to work closely with NGOs to improve gender equality at a societal level, as they do not work in isolation. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Srilatha Batliwala on Gender-Based Harassment in the Workplace

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Srilatha Batliwala is Director, Knowledge Building and Feminist Leadership with CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action), an international organisation that works at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and human rights. She has published extensively on a range of women’s issues, and is best known for her work on women’s empowerment. She is a member of IHRB's International Advisory Council and also serves on the boards of a number of other international and Indian human rights, women’s rights, and development organisations. 

In a conversation with IHRB's Salil Tripathi, Batliwala notes that progress to improve equality and non-discrimination in recent years is thanks in no small measure to the strong, passionate, and sustained advocacy of the women's movement. When it comes to business and women's rights, companies across the world are increasingly aware of their responsibilities, but what constitutes good and bad practice is also complex and nuanced. Companies can have very strong gender equality policies without necessarily having any visible women in leadership. Conversely, there are organisations with very prominent female leadership and very poor environments for women workers inside those companies. Symbolic and substantive efforts are needed to eradicate gender-based harassment in the workplace, in particular learning how to analyse and address the issue of people in the workplace practising values that contravene - in subtle, hidden, often devious ways - the formal values of the organisation.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of business, equality, and non-discrimination, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2018.

Maryam Al-Khawaja on Technology Companies

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Drawing on examples of companies providing surveillance equipment to governments with a poor human rights record, Maryam Al-Khawaja shows how technology can harm people. In this conversation with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, Al-Khawaja shows the inadequacy of non-judicial remedies to deal with incidents that cause grave harm to human rights, and the failure of companies to do anything about the adverse impacts of their technologies.

Maryam Al-Khawaja is a Bahrainian human rights activist living in Denmark, who was awarded the Rafto Prize in 2013. She is an advisor to the Gulf Center for Human Rights (where she has been director) and offers training to human rights organisations. 

Richard Meeran on Civil Litigation for Grave Abuses

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The obstacles litigants face in taking companies to trial are formidable. Evidence-gathering is hard, and victims lack resources. The process of discovery – through which victims’ lawyers get in the information necessary to proceed in the case – remains cumbersome. In this podcast, Richard Meeran, who has represented clients who have grievances against corporate conduct, talks to IHRB’s Salil Tripathi about the challenges and offers ways in which the process can be simplified.

Richard Meeran has been a Partner at London-based public interest law firm, Leigh Day, since 1991. He is the Head of the firm’s International Department.  Over the past 25 years he has pioneered human rights litigation against multinationals, which has led, through a series of cases, to the transformation of UK law on parent company duty of care and forum non conveniens and greater access to justice for victims.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Ajda Cevc on Responsible Recruitment

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Companies with operations in far-flung parts of the world are often reliant on workers from foreign countries working in factories that belong to sub-contractors in third countries. Using leverage systematically and judiciously becomes a challenge for companies. In this podcast with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, IKEA’s Ajda Cevc outlines the complex nature of the problem and elaborates on steps her company has taken to mitigate harm.

Ajda Cevc is project leader at IKEA driving external engagement and internal policy development regarding responsible recruitment of migrant workers. Cevc works on the development and implementation of the group’s updated approach to prevent child labour and supporting young workers, as well as on other human rights initiatives in the supply chain. She came to work at IKEA in 2015 with experience in civil society, and holds a law degree from University of Ljubljana and an LLM in international human rights law from Lund University.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Claes Cronstedt on Arbitration

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The need for an independent arbitration mechanism arises because of the uneven performance of existing options to seek judicial remedy. In many cases victims have had to wait long to get redress, and even then there is no assurance that they will get justice. Court systems are overburdened, and jurisdictional challenges make litigation harder. In this podcast, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi talks to international lawyer Claes Cronstedt who has been leading efforts to establish an arbitration mechanism that can handle complex human rights cases.

Claes Cronstedt is a member of the Swedish bar and a former international partner of Baker & McKenzie. He has been involved in international human rights litigation, in particular the Raoul Wallenberg Case against the USSR. From 2001 to 2014 he was a member of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Committee of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe. He was a member of the Swedish Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Commission on Business in Society (2001-2004) and a trustee of International Alert, London, working with peaceful transformation of violent conflicts (1999-2006). In 2006-2008 he was a member of the International Commission of Jurists’ Expert Legal Panel on Corporate Complicity in International Crimes. He is the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Academy for Young Leaders.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Nnimmo Bassey on Community Injustices

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Reports of civil society organisations and lawsuits filed by affected parties would suggest that adverse human rights are more likely to occur in the extractive sector. Oil, mining, and gas exploration companies have often faced accusations of human rights abuses. Nigeria has become the focal point of the interface between oil and communities, and in this podcast with Salil Tripathi, Nnimmo Bassey explains why the communities are losing faith in the institutions meant to protect rights.

Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian poet, architect, and environmental activist. He has received the Alternative Nobel Prize and the Rafto Prize for Human Rights. He has been the chair of Friends of the Earth International and executive director of Environmental Rights Action

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Frode Elgesem on OECD National Contact Points

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The National Contact Points constituted under the OECD are not courts of law and are not meant to give judgments that offer penalties to offenders. The NCP is a dispute resolution mechanism intended to serve a specific purpose – of bringing together parties in a dispute to arrive at a solution. Frode Elgesem is a Norwegian lawyer and member of the country’s NCP. In this podcast, he speaks with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi about what NCPs can and cannot do.

Frode Elgesem is a senior lawyer who has worked on cases involving white collar crime, European law, anti-corruption matters, anti-trust cases, and human rights. He has been an associate in the office of the attorney general and a senior partner at a law firm. 

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Doug Cassel on an International Treaty

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Efforts are underway to draft and negotiate a binding treaty on business and human rights. At one end are advocates and civil society organisations who would like a treaty that addresses all forms of corporate abuses; at the other end are legal experts and governments who do are reluctant to create a body of law that may transfer state obligations to non-state actors and which may focus only on one type of companies – the multinational corporation, ignoring large national or state-owned companies.It is also too early to tell what the treaty might do and how effective it might be. In this podcast with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, Douglass Cassel explains the process so far and points out the progress made, as well as suggesting some practical ways forward.

Douglass Cassel is Professor of Law and Notre Dame Presidential Fellow at Notre Dame Law School in the United States.  He teaches and publishes scholarly and professional articles in the field of business and human rights. Cassel has been legal advisor to the UN Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, executive council member of the American Society of International Law, and chaired the independent international panel on alleged collusion in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Usha Ramanathan on Big Data

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The challenges that big data poses are mammoth and the questions of governance that are raised are only now being understood, human rights scholar Usha Ramanathan tells IHRB’s Salil Tripathi in this podcast. It is difficult to think of a remedy when society is only beginning to grasp the extent of technology and its pervasive control over lives. Surveillance is not a problem that affects only a few; the Aadhaar project in India shows that it can affect the lives of everyone in the world’s second-most populous nation.

Usha Ramanathan lives in New Delhi, India, where she works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty, and human rights. She has written extensively and spoken on a wide range of issues, including the nature of law, constitutional rights, mass displacement, eminent domain, civil liberty, corporate accountability, surveillance, beggary, criminal law, custodial institutions, and the judicial process.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Sanchita Saxena on Worker Safety

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Initiatives targeting working conditions in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have sometimes been cited as the way forward to address issues of health and safety of workers. In this podcast, IHRB’s Salil Tripathi talks to Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, Executive Director of the Institute for South Asia Studies (ISAS) at the University of California at Berkeley, about the pervasive problem and the absence of an effective remedy. While noting the progress of initiatives like Accord and Alliance which were designed to help prevent the recurrence of tragedies like the collapse of Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saxena argues that such initiatives do not go far enough, and foreign brands and the home state have to play a more active role.

Saxena is also the Director of the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at ISAS under the Institute. She is the author of Made in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka: The Labor Behind the Global Garments and Textiles Industries (Cambria Press, 2014). She has also been a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. in 2010 and 2014.  Dr. Saxena holds a PhD in political science from UCLA. Her commentaries have been featured in theNew York Times, Economic and Political Weekly, Thomson Reuters, The Daily Star, Globe and Mail and aired on Public Radio International, Voice of America, LinkTV, and KPFA.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Anita Ramasastry on Corporate Crime

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The law exists to investigate and prosecute companies when their activities cause grave harm to human rights, but the issue gets complicated when multiple jurisdictions are involved, and where political will is lacking. In this podcast with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, legal expert Anita Ramasastry points out three recent cases from Brazil, Sudan, and Syria which show that governments are taking the cases seriously. She also points out the work of the UN Working Group for Business and Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to clarify corporate responsibility.

Anita Ramasastry is a Member of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights. She is also the UW Law Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. Her research interests include business and human rights, anti-corruption and law and development. Her current research focuses on the role of business in armed conflict. Author of numerous scholarly articles and reports, she has worked extensively on commerce, crime, and conflict, and human rights due diligence. From 2009 – 2011, Ramasastry served as a senior advisor in the Obama Administration, working in the International Trade Administration of the US Department of Commerce. She is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School and the University of Sydney.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Charles Radcliffe on LGBTI+ Rights

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Workers perform better if they feel safe and respected at workplace. And yet, not only is discrimination persists, women, LGBTI employees, and ethnic or religious minorities have often faced disadvantaged and been subjected to harassment and bullying. People have begun to challenge that and speaking up against that, and there is wider recognition of the fact that discrimination is bad for business. In this podcast with IHRB’s Salil Tripathi, Charles Radcliffe of the UN Human Rights Office talks about the issues and talks about the new Corporate Standards of Business Conduct to tackle discrimination against LGBTI people.

Charles Radcliffe heads the equality & non-discrimination team at the United Nations Human Rights Office in New York. He also leads the UN’s work on the rights of lesbian, gay, bi, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people and directs UN Free & Equal – a multimedia campaign that promotes equal rights and fair treatment for LGBTI people globally. Prior to joining the United Nations in 2006, Charles was a founding staff member, and for seven years vice-president, of the International Crisis Group. He began his career as a researcher at the British House of Commons and later as a speechwriter and policy adviser to several British and Australian politicians. He holds a First Class Honours Degree in Law from King’s College London in the United Kingdom and a Masters Degree in International Relations from Sydney University, Australia.

This podcast is part of a mini-series dedicated to the theme of “Realising Access to Effective Remedy”, as part of IHRB's annual Top 10 Business & Human Rights issues for 2018.

Julia Coburn on CDM and Mexican Migrant Workers

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Centro de los Derechos del Migrante  (CDM) is a workers’ organisation dedicated to the advancement of workers’ rights, in particular Mexican low-wage migrant workers who travel to the US for work. In this podcast, Julia Coburn, CDM's Director of Operations (Mexico), discusses with IHRB's Neill Wilkins one of CDM’s key initiatives, Contratados, a worker-facing workers’ rights information sharing platform for realtime anonymous reports of working conditions. 

Contratados allows workers to make informed decisions about migration.  The platform also connects workers with resources to remediate abuse, and provides opportunites for workers to engage in advocacy initiatives to advance workers rights.

Julia, CDM’s Director of Operations in Mexico, is a longtime CDM supporter.  She is a graduate student at the University for Peace in Costa Rica and a Founding Ally for Migrant Justice. After volunteering with CDM in Zacatecas during college, Julia returned as the 2009 University of Chicago Dr. Aizik Wolf Human Rights Post-Baccalaureate Fellow.  As a Fellow, Julia shaped the Justice in Recruitment program, designing research methods, conducting some of the first survey research on recruitment, and writing extensively about fraud and recruitment abuse. After her Fellowship ended, she moved to CDM’s Baltimore office, where she worked as a Program Associate. Since then, she has continued to support CDM.

Anneke Van Woudenberg on Anvil Mining in the DR Congo

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In 2004, more than 70 people were killed in a massacre in Kilwa, in DR Congo, for which families of the victims have fought for justice for more than a decade. On 4th August 2017, the African Commission on Human and People's Rights held the Congolese Government accountable for the human rights violations, and criticised Anvil Mining, an Australian-Canadian mining company, which was accused of having provided logistical support. Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), is a human rights organisation that campaigned for justice.

In this interview, IHRB's Salil Tripathi speaks to Anneke Van Woudenberg, RAID's executive director, about the incident, the campaign to get justice, the search for remedy, and the implications of the verdict for the accountability of corporations.

Before RAID, Van Woudenberg was deputy director for Africa at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted in-depth fact-finding research and wrote reports on human rights violations across Africa, especially in the DRC and the Great Lakes region. She has testified in international war crimes cases, briefed the UN Security Council, the US Congress and the British and European Parliaments, and is a frequent commentator in the international press. Prior to Human Rights Watch, Anneke was the country director for Oxfam in Congo. She has also worked as a researcher in the British and Canadian parliaments, followed by six years in the private sector for a large multinational bank and Andersen Consulting. Anneke has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor Degree (High Honours) in Political Science from Carleton University, Canada.

Gopinath Parakuni on Tamil Nadu’s Informal Shoe Stitchers

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In this interview, Gopinath Parakuni speaks with IHRB's Salil Tripathi about a campaign by Civil Initiatives for Development and Peace (Cividep) to highlight the working conditions of informal workers in the leather and shoe manufacturing sector in India. He spoke about the low wages, the lack of unionisation, the exposure to health and safety risks, and the absence of due diligence. He pointed out the role the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights could play in improving standards, and why focusing on brands and educating consumers is an important part of the campaign.

Gopinath is the general secretary of Cividep, a Bangalore-based organisation campaigning for workers’ rights and corporate accountability. Cividep has been working to educate and empower workers and communities in India to ensure that businesses comply with human rights, labour rights and environmental standards. It targets the garments, electronics, and leather and tea/coffee sectors. Cividep is also a member of a number of international networks, including the Good Electronics Network, OECD Watch and the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims.

Andy Hall on Campaigning for Migrant Workers in Thailand

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In this interview, Andy Hall spoke to IHRB's Salil Tripathi about his work in Southeast Asia. He talked about the conditions migrant workers face, the challenges for advocacy, and the role of multinational corporations which source products from the region. He stressed the importance of the role of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in improving standards - particularly in relation to remedy.

Andy Hall is a British human rights defender and migrant worker rights specialist who lived in Thailand and Myanmar for over 11 years working on worker rights and modern day slavery issues. Andy Hall was acquitted of criminal defamation charges related to his research work in November 2016, but has a deferred sentence against him on other charges. He left Thailand fearing his personal safety. As the international affairs advisor to the Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN), Andy has worked for the rights of migrant workers, particularly from Myanmar and Cambodia, to gain greater access to justice mechanisms and better work conditions, both in the seafood sector and other labour-intensive export industries in Thailand. Andy also acted as an advisor to the Myanmar Government in 2013.

Karamat Ali on the 2012 Pakistan Factory Fire

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IHRB's Salil Tripathi speaks with Karamat Ali about a pivotal case in Pakistan, when a large fire at a garment factory killed more than two hundred workers. A German company bought most of that factory's production, and in this conversation Ali describes how a coalition with German politicians, trade union movements, and civil society was built in the campaign for victim compensation. He also talks about the prospects for such coalitions to work together for justice in future.

Karamat Ali is executive director at the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER). He has extensive experience as a trade unionist dating back to the 1970s and has contributed to strengthening the trade union movement and building links with civil society groups in Pakistan. He has degrees from the University of Karachi and the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. He has also played a prominent role in promoting peace between Pakistan and India. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee, Hague Appeal for Peace, and member International Council World Social Forum.

Surya Deva on the UN Working Group’s Plans for 2017

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Professor Deva has recently been appointed as the Asia-Pacific representative to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, whose mandate is to promote, support and disseminate the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In this interview, IHRB's Salil Tripathi and Professor Deva discuss the Working Group’s current strategy.  At the top of the Working Group’s agenda in the coming years will be access to remedy (Pillar III of the UN Guiding Principles), without which principles are of little meaning. The Working Group will continue to focus on disseminating and implementing the UN Guiding Principles, making concrete recommendations, and sharing good practice. The discussion takes place at the UN Forum for Business and Human Rights in Geneva in November 2016.

Surya Deva is an Associate Professor at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. His primary research interests lie in business and human rights, corporate social responsibility, India-China constitutional law, and sustainable development. He has published extensively in these areas. Deva recently wrote a background paper for India’s National Framework on Business and Human Rights. He is one of the founding Editors-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, and sits on the Editorial Board of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights. In 2014, Deva was elected a Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law.

Seema Joshi and Meghna Abraham on Palm Oil

Amnesty International today published a report, The Great Palm Oil Scandal: Labour abuses behind big brand names, on the conditions in which workers, including women and children, work at oil palm plantations in North Sumatra and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The report outlines instances of human rights abuses, including possible violations of Indonesian labour laws and deviation from international standards, by Wilmar International and three of its suppliers. The report raises concerns with leading multinationals who buy palm oil from Indonesian plantations and calls upon consumers to demand greater transparency to ensure an end to the abuses.

IHRB's Salil Tripathi spoke to Amnesty International's Seema Joshi and Meghna Abraham, who have worked on the report. Seema and Meghna outline the report's main findings and raise concerns about what consumers, companies, and the international community should do.

Seema Joshi heads Amnesty International's business and human rights programme at the organisation's international secretariat. She has been legal advisor at Global Witness, where she investigated cases and pushed for stronger legal accountability of companies that commit criminal acts. She has also been closely involved with a project with other organisations, including the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) to develop corporate crime principles. A lawyer by training, Seema was called at the Alberta Bar in Canada, Seema was educated in Canada and at the London School of Economics.

Download Filetype: MP3 - Size: 5.68 MB - Duration: 11:58 m (66 kbps 44100 Hz)

Meghna Abraham heads Amnesty International's economic, social, and cultural rights team and is senior investigator on corporate crimes at the organisation. Educated in India and at Oxford, she has conducted research in Brazil, India, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Qatar, and Slovenia. She has worked at the International Service for Human Rights, the Centre on the Housing Rights and Evictions, and the World Organisation Against Torture.

Download Filetype: MP3 - Size: 5.75 MB - Duration: 12:24 m (65 kbps 44100 Hz)