Business and human rights: 'the field'

Does focusing on a singular high-profile issue advance or distort efforts to promote responsible business more generally?

Those who write and work on 'business and human rights' (BHR) tend to describe this as an 'emerging' field, although it is not self-evident what the field comprises or ought to comprise.

The question of the proper or ideal parameters of a field seems highly academic. I have argued elsewhere* that there are some downsides to the attempt to frame many wider challenges of sustainable and responsible business in the language and logic of 'human rights'. In an earlier post, for example, I questioned whether the BHR paradigm was an appropriate or useful one for addressing income inequality.**

The question of wide or narrow framing also has some very practical aspects.

In Australia, much of whatever BHR-related momentum exists in government and some business circles is increasingly coming to focus on human trafficking and 'modern slavery' issues (which are not the same thing), mainly relating to larger Australian-listed firms' overseas supply chains. For instance, a parliamentary sub-committee enquiry is afoot to assess the suitability for Australia of a legislative model based on the UK Modern Slavery Act, which includes some basic supply-chain disclosure obligations on bigger businesses.

This trafficking/forced labour focus is not the totality of the BHR conversation in Australia, but it seems to represent an increasingly and, one could argue, disproportionately big chunk of it.

To some extent, this may be true of the BHR phenomenon well beyond Australia, or at least in some circles in the United Kingdom (where many BHR conversations quickly become conversations about the Modern Slavery Act, which while an important development is merely one intervention in one set of problems in one jurisdiction.)

On one hand this elision between 'BHR' and 'trafficking/modern slavery' is to be welcomed:

• trafficking and forced labour issues are objectively important in their own right;
• 'focus' on them is not necessarily something narrow since even seen in isolation this is a big complex problem to face;
• focus on these issues aligns with Australia's reputation for innovation and commitment in addressing human trafficking through criminal law provisions and policy work;
• and a focus on this set of issues can conceivably act as a proxy for BHR issues more generally, including in sensitising business to wider BHR-related issues, increasing the scope for business to be receptive in future to initiatives that go well beyond supply chains and trafficking + forced labour issues.

This last factor is not unimportant: unless you subscribe to the overly-enthusiastic idea that the BHR paradigm has had a 'magic' effect in galvanising business engagement***, one can recognise the value of any initiative (such as one on corporate supply chains and trafficking / forced labour) that reassures yet challenges business to action even if this is action only on one aspect of BHR problems.

[In any event it may be inevitable that any Australian BHR attention focus on such overseas issues: without trivialising BHR issues arising here at home, objectively those prevalent in settings abroad are of far greater scale and seriousness. Trafficking and modern slavery issues abroad also happen to have an influential business leader, so again the special focus relative to other BHR issues may be inevitable. It may also be natural for advocacy, policy-making and business to be content to ride with one (objectively important and complex enough) set of issues: it gives advocates a sense of something happening; it gives policymakers an example of Australia's commitment to human rights; it gives big business a readily understandable and identifiable issue, target or problem-set (whereas acting on 'human rights' generally covers a very wide area of possible activity).]

Yet on the other hand, BHR is about a great deal more than human trafficking and forced or slavery-like labour. Even the sphere where 'labour rights' and internationally protected 'human rights' overlap comprises many more issues than is suggested by a focus just on corporate supply chain human rights dynamics, and then within that on human labour trafficking (etc) within supply chains.

If there is anything to this observation, it may create something of a dilemma for those interested in an overarching BHR advocacy strategy, as well as those (for example, within government agencies) interested in or required to give content to Australia's implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on BHR more generally: does one direct energies to an issue that is attracting at least some attention and interest, hoping that it will not displace other important BHR issues and themes?

'BHR' on one had comprises more than the 'modern slavery' agenda. Yet at the same time BHR (at least understood as a distinct set of claims grounded ultimately in international legal standards with, in that sense, relatively narrow application) is not necessarily equipped or suitable as the framework for tackling and resolving complex issues such as forced labour and associated human movement. 

Jo

* On the idea that some contributors sketch the field of BHR too broadly, see here, pp 6-7.

** On the income inequality question, see here.

*** On this supposed 'magic' transformation see the 'Alchemy of BHR' blogs.