理事会举行有关联合国在推进工商业与人权议程方面的作用的小组讨论（部分翻译）

人权理事会
下午

2013年5月30日

人权理事会今天下午举行了有关联合国系统通过在2015年后框架和联合国相关战略、政策和过程中嵌入《工商业与人权问题指导原则》，推进工商业与人权议程方面的作用的小组讨论。

联合国人权事务高级专员纳维·皮莱在开幕词中表示，贸易业务自其伊始已经维持了世界各地数十亿人的生计，妖魔化全球化是一个错误。但由于各方利益具有竞争性，全球化中确实也有一些不和谐的现象，所以必须检查工商业活动以避免侵犯人权的行为。各国政府有义务通过有效立法保护企业雇员，但它们没有做到管理工商业的人权影响或确保受害者有诉诸司法的权利。联合国有职责将工商业与人权议程整合进其工作中。它能将《指导原则》纳入其2015年后框架与工商业合作伙伴战略。

讨论组成员包括联合国全球契约总顾问与人权负责人乌苏拉·维因霍文（Ursula Wynhoven），联合国妇女署战略伙伴关系司主任克里斯汀·赫特尔（Kristin Hetle），联合国开发计划署高级人权政策顾问希尔琳·赛义德（Shireen Said），联合国国际儿童紧急救济基金会私营部门筹款和伙伴关系主任莱拉·帕卡拉（Leila Pakkala）和联合国贸易和发展会议国际投资协议法律专家伊丽莎白·图尔克（Elisabeth Tuerk）。

联合国全球契约总顾问与人权负责人乌苏拉·维因霍文（Ursula Wynhoven）表示，全球契约办公室在其创始的13年来都与人权高专办和其他伙伴就工商业与人权议程开展合作。办公室设有一个人权工作组，主要负责制订工具和指南之外的良好措施和宣传策略。办公室已发现寻求承认尊重人权为实现可持续发展的重要方面的综合方法的机遇。

联合国妇女署战略伙伴关系司主任克里斯汀·赫特尔表示，联合国妇女署致力于与联合国系统和工商业团体就共同议程开展合作。与包括企业部门在内的社会各阶层开展合作十分重要。工商业在创造体面的就业机会、为妇女提供收入来源、实现环境可持续性和保护人权等方面发挥着重要作用。各国有责任履行他们在国际人权文书中承诺的义务，并确保使企业明确自身义务和对其问责的法律和机制落实到位。

联合国开发计划署高级人权政策顾问希尔琳·赛义德表示，开发计划署是一个与工商业广泛互动的发展机构，旨在通过超越传统企业社会责任感概念、有益于发展的超前商业模式，促进包容性增长，最终达成千年发展目标。 联合国开发计划署承认，制订实现长期参与的变革性方法仍需进行进一步分析。

联合国国际儿童紧急救济基金会私营部门筹款和伙伴关系主任莱拉·帕卡拉（Leila Pakkala）表示，基金会长期以来与私营部门合作，以为儿童提供帮助。儿童权利应该被纳入到工商业的政策和运营中，令人振奋的是，一些公司已经开始将这些原则整合进其政策框架中。

儿童权利委员会已开始进行制订有关儿童权利和工商业的一般性意见的协商过程，这为各国就其在该问题上的义务实质提供了指导。

联合国贸易和发展会议国际投资协议法律专家伊丽莎白·图尔克表示， 联合国贸易和发展会议可以举出一些实例表明工商业与人权问题已被纳入其工作的主流。会议在一年前制订了其《可持续发展投资政策框架》并建议将可持续发展本身作为一个目标。会议相信2015年后发展议程的背景下孕育着更多的机会。

在讨论中，发言者一致同意企业在就业和社会政策方面具有人权责任，许多发言者支持建立实现包括人权机构和企业实体在内的发展行为者之间更公平的关系的机制。联合国机构在提高认识、能力建设、 建立一个促使企业能够努力实现在工作场所中更好地保护人权的框架方面都具有至关重要的作用； 一些国家补充道， 对人权议程的追求应该被看做经济发展可持续性的一部分，这与企业本来就是利害攸关的。

参与讨论的国家有：斯洛文尼亚代表国家集团、挪威、哥伦比亚代表拉丁美洲国家集团、欧盟、吉尔吉斯斯坦、阿联酋、瑞士、智利、俄罗斯联邦、阿尔及利亚、埃及、澳大利亚、摩洛哥、卡塔尔、波兰、墨西哥、美国、马尔代夫、西班牙、德国、中国、古巴、伊朗和巴林。

加拿大人权委员会、公民参与世界联盟（CIVICUS）、国际人权服务社、南美洲印第安人理事会、国际方济会等非政府组织也作了发言。

人权理事会将于5月31日星期五上午9点复会，届时将与人权与跨国公司和其他工商企业问题工作组和和平机会和结社自由权利问题特别报告员进行集体互动对话。

Opening Statement

NAVI PILLAY, High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that since the beginning of time the business of trading had sustained billions of lives around the world.  It would be a mistake to demonize the globalization of the market economy, which could actually increase standards of living and have a positive impact on the world’s population.  Nevertheless, it was true that globalization had created dissonance because of competing interests in business activities.  It was necessary, therefore, to check business activities in order to avoid abuses and human rights violations, such as employment in intolerable conditions.  Governments had the obligation to protect employees through effective legislation and oversight, yet governments failed to regulate the human rights impact of business or to ensure access to justice for victims of corporate human rights abuse.  Enlightened governments and companies, on the other hand, recognized that only upholding human rights could help to create a stable society in which business activities could thrive. 

The United Nations had its own key role to play in integrating the business and human rights agenda into its work.  Two years ago the Council endorsed a series of Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Now it was time to work on embedding the Guiding Principles into the United Nations’ development strategies, policies and processes.  Business could only fully contribute to overcoming poverty by respecting human rights.  Therefore, they needed to help governments ensure that mechanisms for oversight and accountability functioned effectively, with protection of human rights at their core, and with coherence between human rights and other development objectives.  The United Nations system could incorporate the three pillars of the Guiding Principles into its post-2015 framework and into its strategies for partnering with business. 

Statements by Panellists

URSULA WYNHOVEN, General Counsel and Head of Human Rights at the United Nations Global Compact, said that the United Nations Global Compact was the United Nations’ corporate responsibility and sustainability initiative, which advocated that business did no harm, made a difference, and worked with others.  The total number of signatories, business and non business, was now more than 10,000.  Since the Global Compact began 13 years ago, the Global Compact Office had worked closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and with other partners on the business and human rights agenda.  It had also actively promoted robust and user-friendly tools and guidance developed by other organizations.  It had a Human Rights Working Group, which beyond tools and guidance focused on good practice development and dissemination through good practice notes, peer viewed case studies, a webinar series, and an online dilemmas forum.  An opportunity that had been identified and actively pursued was an integrated approach to human rights that recognised respect for human rights as an essential dimension of sustainability.  A taskforce of companies from different sectors and countries within the Global Compact had developed some recommendations of themes, goals and targets that they would like to see succeed the Millennium Development Goals. 

KRISTIN HETLE, Director of the Strategic Partnerships Division, United Nations Women, said that United Nations Women was committed to working with the United Nations system and the business community on common agendas and leveraging collective strengths.  Despite progress in many areas, no country could claim to be free from gender-based discrimination.  Partnering with all segments of society, including the corporate sector, was critical.  Engaging the business community was key to unlocking women’s full potential and in turn, eradicating poverty and hunger and improving the lives of millions.  This was especially true for women’s economic empowerment.  Today, women made up 45 per cent of the world’s workforce, yet they accounted for 70 per cent of the poor.  Business had a crucial role to play to create decent jobs and incomes for women, build their skills and capacities, while contributing to environmental sustainability and upholding human rights.  The Women’s Empowerment Principles offered a platform for business to purposefully drive the advancement of women in the workplace, in the marketplace and in the community.  States had a duty to live up to the obligations they had committed to in international human rights instruments and to ensure that laws and mechanisms were in place that made clear to business their obligations and also held them accountable.  There should not be any safe havens for corporate human rights abusers. 

SHIREEN SAID, Senior Policy Advisor for Human Rights at the United Nations Development Programme, sent the apologies of Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, for her absence and presented a snapshot of the United Nations Development Programme’s experience of the topic in hand at country, regional and global levels.  The United Nations Development Programme was a development agency that had multiple engagements with business with the aim of meeting the Millennium Development Goals by fostering inclusive growth with advancing business models that could be positive for development and that went beyond traditional concepts of corporate social responsibility.  As a result of experience in the Latin American and Caribbean region in the extractive industries, the United Nations Development Programme would co-host an enabling forum to provide capacity-building opportunities for practitioners and civil society and identify material business and human rights in the region.  Recent global and regional consultations on governance and the post-2015 development agenda stressed the need for a transformative people-centred agenda.  While it was common to find that Governments’ hands were tied due to contracts entered into that stopped them from protecting social issues, the need to engage on principles to responsibly manage contracts was well noted.  The United Nations Development Programme acknowledged that further analysis was needed toward a transformative method of engagement in the long term.

LEILA PAKKALA, Director of Private Fundraising and Partnerships at the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, said that the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund had a long history of working with the private sector to deliver results for children.  One long-lasting relationship which had been initiated on the basis of child labour concerns was with IKEA, which had sought to address the root causes of child labour in India over the course of the last decade.  It had become increasingly important to develop standards on how business related to children’s rights and how the issues affecting the rights and wellbeing of children could be addressed.  However, it was not just about developing a set of principles, but child rights should be included in the policies and operation of businesses.  The Child Rights Checklist was one of the tools designed to facilitate that process. 

It was encouraging to see that several companies had already integrated the principles into their policy frameworks and had begun to focus on children’s rights in assessing the impact of their business on human rights.  In certain cases, companies had taken action in relation to children’s rights issues as a way of addressing key business risks, and in others to maximize the power of business to support children’s rights.  The Committee on the Rights of the Child embarked on a consultative process to develop a General Comment on child rights and business, which provided States with guidance on the nature of their obligations under the Convention with regard to the business sector.  More work was needed to fill gaps in legislative and regulatory frameworks, especially in areas related to the marketing of products and services.  

ELISABETH TUERK, Legal Expert in International Investment Agreements, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development could offer a number of examples where business and human rights had been mainstreamed into its work.  Human rights and business were of paramount importance to it.  A regulatory framework could help ensure that the private sector acted appropriately.  The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development worked to ensure that the private sector was part of the solution rather than the problem.  It had a year ago launched its Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development.  On what could be done to ensure that these important issues would be present in the post-2015 agenda, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development proposed that sustainable development be made a goal in itself.  It could be important to have both a quantitative and qualitative target.  The business and human rights agenda could add context, colour, contour and shading to this.  Human rights, along with sustainable development and sustainable growth, were very much part of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s agenda.  It believed that many more opportunities were to come, in the context of the post-2015 development agenda.

Discussion

Slovenia, speaking on behalf of a group of countries, said that it was crucial that adequate capacity building of all stakeholders be conducted, and that the United Nations should provide guidance and support.  Norway said that transnational companies played an important role in development, and the post-2015 agenda should redefine the global partnerships for development, including redefining the role for businesses and the private sector.  Colombia, speaking on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries, said that the guiding principles for the United Nations framework to protect and respect human rights were an important tool to be used by all actors who had the obligation to promote and protect human rights.  The European Union said that it recognized the links between human rights, good governance and sustainable development, and stressed that there was a collective responsibility to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.  Kyrgyzstan said that it proposed a new mechanism for the participation of transnational corporations in global affairs through partnerships with specific countries where the transnational corporations did not operate.  The United Arab Emirates said that the draft resolution on the efforts that needed to be made to combat trafficking in persons in the business world was an important step forward.  Switzerland said that the United Nations and its specialized agencies should use market forces which had a proven positive influence not only on their employees but also on the environment.  Sierra Leone said that the United Nations should be involved in the training and awareness-raising of business officials to help them align business activities with human rights obligations.  Chile said that it was necessary to bridge the gap between businesses and human rights, and the Council had a key role to play in mainstreaming and driving forward the relationship between the two.  The Russian Federation said that it had co-sponsored the relevant resolution and supported all relevant activities.  Efforts to apply the Guiding Principles both in the business world and in civil society should be intensified.  Algeria said that progress should be made in the dissemination and promotion of the Guiding Principles, which should also be included in the post-2015 agenda.  What impact would the principles have on the rights of women post-2015? 

The Canadian Human Rights Commission said that according to the Paris Principles, national human rights institutions had a responsibility to help ensure policy coherence between concerned international, United Nations, civil society and other groups.  Civicus welcomed the debate and endorsed the idea of the business and human rights framework but was sceptical due to the soft language and the voluntary nature of corporate commitment to the human rights agenda.  The International Service for Human Rights said that the Guiding Principles had to be brought into line with the charter on the protection of human rights defenders.

URSULA WYNHOVEN, General Counsel and Head of Human Rights of United Nations Global Compact, said that one of the biggest barriers was the persistent lack of awareness of the practical meaning of human rights by business.  States could demand greater coherence between business and human rights, especially in the area of public procurement.  In the field, local networks could provide one channel for learning, dialogue and partnerships on business and human rights.  The question of a binding mechanism was a question for Governments, but companies could certainly make some positive contributions as well. 

KRISTIN HETLE, Director of the Strategic Partnerships Division, United Nations Women, said that United Nations Women, in the way it worked with business, had seen that the fact that it had to be the top leader that had to sign onto the Guiding Principles and very publicly so, created self-discipline which led to real change in business and created opportunities for employees and civil society that had publicly signed onto the Principles, to hold business accountable.  United Nations Women’s proposed a standalone goal, to achieve women’s equality, rights and empowerments, and target areas had to address the promotion of decent work for women and their access and control to production access, in order to achieve this.

SHIREEN SAID, Senior Policy Advisor on Human Rights in United Nations Development Programme, said that the development agenda was time-consuming and that the business sector wanted quick fixes; this often accounted for the inequitable relationship that development actors had with corporate entities.  Those entities were also better funded.  Corporate reporting obligations did not always amount to a meaningful regard for human rights.  It was imperative for the United Nations Development Programme to manage a “cultural change” in the relationship between rights bodies and business.  With regard to the post-2015 development agenda, it would be important to bring the topics raised in this discussion forward into that process.  The impact of the Guiding Principles had been similar in Latin America and in the Caribbean and it would be useful to take that forward into other regions.

LEILA PAKKALA, Director of Private Fundraising and Partnerships at the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, echoed the general points made so far and added the perspective of children into the discussion.  Regardless of contributions to the post-2015 development agenda, it was fundamental to act now, before 2015, so that capacities could be built within the United Nations system and its work with governments.  Resources must be allocated carefully if they were going to be successful in their relationship with business vis-a-vis children’s rights.  As regard the comment from Sierra Leone, there were many examples of good practice to draw on.  Ms. Pakkala said “we are only as good as our actions” as a United Nations family, and as such this system had to be made accountable at least as far as its own targets were concerned.

ELISABETH TUERK, Legal Expert in International Investment Agreements, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, as she saw it, was an organization that could channel business and human rights ideas into a different community, namely in the investment community.  On policy making, it would be important to ensure that the idea of human rights and business made its way into investment policy making and that was very much what the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was trying to do with investment policy makers at the national and international levels.  On international investment agreements, agreements normally gave rights rather than obligations to investments and that was a gap.  However, the debate was on the right ground and bringing the different communities together was one step forward. 

Egypt said that promoting the respect for all human rights was a fundamental purpose of the United Nations Charter and that therefore mainstreaming of human rights into business was relevant.  Australia saw the integration of human rights into business as important and it was a strong advocate of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Morocco saw this as the right occasion to discuss the role of the United Nations agencies and the initiatives they could take to incorporate the Guiding Principles into the post-2015 development agenda, but said they had to work within their own mandates.

Qatar said that the world was undergoing radical economical changes that the private sector was contributing to, and that thus businesses were called to play new roles in today’s world linked to the responsibilities they had towards society.  Poland said that the complexity of the issue required enhanced coordination of United Nations system initiatives related to business and human rights and Mexico saw a need to coordinate and integrate the work of specialised agencies that worked with the private sector.  United States encouraged the United Nations agencies to build internal capacity to increase awareness and capacity to ensure the implementation of the Guiding Principles.  The adverse impacts on the environment caused by business enterprises at times infringed on human rights and the Maldives hoped that the Panel would recognise this in its report.

Spain was committed to implementing the Guiding Principles and among measures adopted to do this it had developed a National Plan on Business and Human Rights, while Germany said that it had been funding a research project with a focus on mainstreaming the Guiding Principles through national human rights institutions activities.  China said that the international community should also see that enterprises in various countries could also work actively in the promotion and protection of human rights and it hoped that various stakeholders could carry out further studies on how they could do this.  Cuba said that in light of some of the human rights impacts that harmful business practices could have, the international community had to play a key role through the United Nations system, in order to achieve a democratic and equitable order in which human rights were ensured.

Iran said that the recent tragic events in Bangladesh and other similar incidents elsewhere had underlined the need to ensure the human rights of employees, which, unfortunately, many transnational corporations were not willing to do.  Bahrain said that it was crucial to define the nature of the relationship between human rights and business.  The adoption of the Guiding Principles by the Council in 2011 had sent out a clear message about the importance of the matter, although numerous challenges remained.  Indian Council of South America said that it did not agree with the Guiding Principles on business and human rights, which gave more authority to transnational corporations.  Franciscans International recommended that the Guiding Principles be mainstreamed in the United Nations system and especially in the post-2015 framework, placing emphasis on indigenous peoples.      

URSULA WYNHOVEN, General Counsel and the Head of Human Rights at the United Nations Global Compact, in concluding remarks once again drew attention to the activities of the taskforce made up of companies from a variety of sectors and countries in the context of the Global Compact, which, among other things, had developed specific goals and targets working to ensure the successful achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. 

KRISTIN HETLE, Director of the Strategic Partnerships Division at United Nations Women, in concluding remarks said that in several countries there was a two-way process between governments and business coalitions, while dedicated interactive websites were also available to share best practices and experiences and to provide advice.  Some of the most vulnerable employees were women employed individually in other people’s homes.  United Nations Women was carrying out advocacy work in collaboration with other international organizations to draw attention to the problems facing vulnerable employees.     

SHIREEN SAID, Senior Policy Advisor on Human Rights at the United Nations Development Programme, in concluding remarks said that they had to be realistic in managing the cultural change in their engagement with the corporate sector.  A much more robust approach was needed, because the corporate sector was not regulated by international organizations, which meant that managing the cultural change remained a major challenge.  

LEILA PAKKALA, Director of Private Fundraising and Partnerships at the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, in concluding remarks said that she hoped that the rights of the child within the business context would be protected as the topic moved forward.  It was important that various instruments were developed, disseminated, implemented and consolidated through collaboration; a coordinated approach between partners was key if lessons were to be learned.

ELISABETH TUERK, Legal Expert in International Investment Agreements at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in concluding remarks said she was inspired by the discussion and that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development could be a channel for further collaboration and offer specific expertise in terms of foreign direct investment flows and policies.  There were numerous opportunities for fruitful continued work.

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