by Reed Addisedited by Liam Mahony

Human Rights and the CorporationThe development of the Human Rights Compliance Assessment

A Tactical Notebook published bythe New Tactics Project

of the Center for Victims of Torture

Published byThe Center for Victims of TortureNew Tactics in Human Rights Project717 East River RoadMinneapolis, MN 55455 USAwww.cvt.org, www.newtactics.org

Notebook Series EditorLiam Mahony

CopyeditingRuth Newman

The Danish Institute for Human Rights and The Center for Victims of Torture wish to acknowledge thefollowing institutions that provided support for the New Tactics in Human Rights West Group regionaltraining workshop, of which this and other tactical notebooks are a product:

· The Paul & Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation,

· The United States Department of State,

· The United States Institute of Peace,

· The European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratization

· Donors who wish to remain anonymous.We are also greatly indebted to the work of numerous interns and volunteers who have contributed theirtime and expertise to the advancement of the project and of human rights.

The New Tactics project has also benefited from more than 2000 hours of work from individual volunteersand interns as well as donations of in-kind support. Some of the institutional sponsors of this work includeMacalester College, the University of Minnesota, the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, theMinnesota Justice Foundation and the public relations firm of Padilla Speer Beardsley.

The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this site are those of the NewTactics project and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders For a full list of project sponsors seewww.newtactics.org.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of the New Tactics in Human RightsProject. The project does not advocate specific tactics or policies.

© 2004 Center for Victims of TortureThis publication may be freely reproduced in print and in electronic form as longas this copyright notice appears on all copies.

66

54Author biography

Letter from New Tactics Project Director

Introduction

The company problem with human rights

7What is the HRCA?

The Center for Victims of TortureNew Tactics in Human Rights Project

717 East River RoadMinneapolis, MN 55455 USA

www.cvt.org, www.newtactics.org

11The HRCA and advocacy

7Using the HRCA

9How the HRCA was developed

11Next steps

12Lessons learned

13Conclusion

Danish Institute for HumanRightsThe Danish Institute for Human Rights is a nationalhuman rights institution in accordance with the UN ParisPrinciples. It became part of the Danish Centre for Inter-national Studies and Human Rights on January 1, 2003.

The work of the DIHR includes research, analysis, infor-mation, education, documentation and complaints han-dling, as well as a large number of national and internationalprograms. DIHR takes a multidisciplinary approach tohuman rights and the DIHR employ staff in the areas oflaw, political science, economics and others.

Contact InformationMorten Kjærum, Executive DirectorDanish Institute for Human Rights56 Standgade1401 Copenhagen KDenmark+45 32698888www.humanrights.dk

Reed AddisReed Addis is an independent consultant to NGOs, busi-ness and governments. From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Addisprovided strategic support for the business program ofthe Danish Institute for Human Rights. He managed theEU consultation process for the Institute, traveling to 13countries and working with human rights advocates andcompany managers to assess the practicality of the Hu-man Rights Compliance Assessment tool.

Mr. Addis brought his experience with environmental andsocial justice work from his career in the United Stateswhere he worked for Congress and the California StateAssembly. Mr. Addis currently consults for the Planningand Conservation League and the California Assembly.He can be contacted at: reed_addis@rkastrategies.com.

September 2004

Dear Friend,

Welcome to the New Tactics in Human Rights Tactical Notebook Series. In each notebook a humanrights practitioner describes an innovative tactic that was used successfully in advancing humanrights. The authors are part of the broad and diverse human rights movement, includingnongovernment and government perspectives, educators, law enforcement personnel, truth andreconciliation processes, women’s rights and mental health advocates. They have both adapted andpioneered tactics that have contributed to human rights in their home countries. In addition, theyhave used tactics that, when adapted, can be applied in other countries and other situations toaddress a variety of issues.

Each notebook contains detailed information on how the author and his or her organization achievedwhat they did. We want to inspire other human rights practitioners to think tactically — and tobroaden the realm of tactics considered to effectively advance human rights.

In this notebook Reed Addis describes the development of the Human Rights ComplianceAssessment by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. The Compliance Assessment, basedsomewhat on the model of an Environmental Impact Assessment, was developed through a longprocess of consultation with businesses from many different industrial sectors, and provides aframework through which businesses can assess their human rights obligations and measure theliabilities and human rights risks in countries where they operate or plan to locate. The tool helpscompanies understand human rights law, but can also help human rights groups understandcompanies and learn to communicate with the corporate world about human rights questions in amore constructive way.

The entire series of Tactical Notebooks is available online at www.newtactics.org. Additionalnotebooks are already available and others will continue to be added over time. On our web site youwill also find other tools, including a searchable database of tactics, a discussion forum for humanrights practitioners and information about our workshops and symposium. To subscribe to the NewTactics newsletter, please send an e-mail to newtactics@cvt.org.

The New Tactics in Human Rights Project is an international initiative led by a diverse group oforganizations and practitioners from around the world. The project is coordinated by the Center forVictims of Torture and grew out of our experiences as a creator of new tactics and as a treatmentcenter that also advocates for the protection of human rights from a unique position — one of healingand reclaiming civic leadership.

We hope that you will find these notebooks informational and thought-provoking.

Sincerely,

Kate KelschNew Tactics Project Manager

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IntroductionIn 1999, a small project was initiated between theDanish Institute for Human Rights and the DanishConfederation of Industries. Their goal was to createan assessment tool companies could use to evaluatepotential violations of human rights in their opera-tions. Up until that point, businesses who were look-ing for human rights guidance in most cases foundonly information about labor law, for example via theInternational Labor Organization.

The Human Rights Compliance Assessment was de-signed to fill this void. It has several sections, with thebulk of the document made up of 350 questions acompany needs to ask itself. The questions were de-signed to cover the entire breadth of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights.

While governments are ultimately responsible forupholding the human rights afforded us by variousinternational treaties, businesses can have a dispro-portionate impact on the activities of governments,either supporting or undercutting government actions.Over the last 20 to 30 years, a wealth of exampleshave been collected that demonstrate that compa-nies can help protect the rights of individuals, or theycan deal them devastating blows. Human rights advo-cates have accordingly begun to invest energy in fo-cusing attention on the conduct of corporations, topush them to behave better, on occasion pulling themalong to better human rights in their operations. Thisdeveloping focus has been critical to adding protec-tions for our human rights. But why this focus now?

Over the last 50 years, corporations have increasinglyextended their operations beyond the country wherethey are headquartered. This means a corporationwith headquarters in one country may sell their prod-ucts in several countries, while the products they sellmay be made in yet another country thousands ofmiles away. Many factors have contributed to this dy-namic, but it is obvious that the production and mar-keting strategies of today are fundamentally differentthan they were a half century ago.

Numerous international treaties, conventions anddeclarations identify human rights that governmentsand all members of society should uphold. Several in-ternational organizations, such as the InternationalLabor Organization, the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development and the United Na-tions Global Compact, have also spelled out humanrights obligations specific to private companies.

However, if an advocacy group wishes to engage acorporation in a constructive dialogue on the issue ofhuman rights, they must know both “languages”: thelanguage of the business world and that of interna-tional human rights law. Without this capacity, advo-cates are left discussing what seem to their corporate

contacts like very vague concepts. These discussionsmay or may not lead to agreements and often referto rather ambiguous changes for business operationsor structure. It is clear to me after many meetingswith human rights advocates that they often struggleto identify concrete changes they can offer to a cor-poration for improviving human rights protections.

This paper will outline how a new assessment tool,the Human Rights Compliance Assessment, designedat the Danish Institute for Human Rights, can helpadvocacy organizations confront human rights abuseslinked to corporate activities and help corporationsassess their own human rights performance.

To understand the importance of this tool, we need toreframe human rights issues as “the company prob-lem” and look for windows of opportunity to helpcorporations address these issues more productively.Taking advantage of these opportunities requires awillingness to see the problems through the businesslens and to build alliances that will be credible in theeyes of the business community. NGOs who get in-volved in this task need to establish their own credibil-ity and build trust, so that businesses can engage indialogue and implement changes without the fear thattheir efforts will be used against them.

The company problem with humanrightsEvery day, businesses must juggle the economic de-mands of customers and other financial stakeholdersalong with the human needs of their employees andthe local community, while at the same time remain-ing competitive in a fierce global market. They needmechanisms nuanced enough to apply in their owncomplex system, yet simple enough to be used bymanagers with no human rights experience.

From 1995 to 1997, some very high-profile media sto-ries came out in the Danish national media coveringpossible human rights violations by Danish companies,some of them very large and well recognized organi-zations. These stories had a great impact on the pub-lic and forced several companies to evaluate theiroperations abroad. It appeared they needed bettercompany policies to reduce the risk of further humanrights violations, but they faced an absence of appro-priate business guidelines and tools. This opened awindow of opportunity for Denmark’s industrial asso-ciation, which itself was under pressure from its mem-bers to help find solutions, to collaborate with thenational human rights watchdog on solutions to prob-lems identified both by human rights advocates andby business professionals.

Corporations were willing to change their operationsto avoid human rights violations, but weren’t sure howto do this. At the same time, advocates were equallychallenged to help these corporations make the right

Human Rights and the Corporation 7

kinds of changes. So DIHR’s collaboration with Danishcompanies focused on taking the principles outlinedin law and “operationalizing” them within a corpo-rate institutional setting. This cooperative venture mettwo needs: To research the problem, a small newproject, the Human Rights and Business Project, wascreated with funding from Danish Industries, whilecompanies made themselves available for the projectto carry out the research, testing and developmentrequired. Without this support, the research projectwould not exist, nor would it have been as successful.As the research project developed, DIHR was also ableto also enjoy the support of the Industrialization Fundfor Developing Countries, which has been critical topromoting the assessment tool within the Develop-ment Finance Institute community.

What is the HRCA?The Human Rights Compliance Assessment is mod-eled on the Environmental Impact Assessment, whichis already familiar to most business organizations. Thistool is the first comprehensive human rights impactassessment designed for corporations and is intendedto help corporations assess the impact of their opera-tions on the rights of both employees and inhabitantswhere they operate. The tool is a database contain-ing over 300 questions and 1000 human rights indica-tors, based on the Universal Declaration of HumanRights, the Dual Covenants of 1966 and the Interna-tional Labor Organization’s Core Conventions.

The aim of the HRCA is to provide companies with atool to audit their practices, to identify areas whereviolations are likely so that these areas can be moni-tored and to make it easier to mitigate existingbreaches and prevent future ones. Large, small andmedium-sized enterprises are often unable to findstandardized ways in which to evaluate their corpo-rate policies. This leads to confused and sometimesconflicting policies that do little to help the corpora-tion meet its goals, either financial or rights-related.The HRCA allows a corporation to comprehensivelyassess its human rights record with a formal and stan-dardized methodology.

The assessment tool includes several features: It de-scribes international law in everyday terms, not legallanguage; it outlines almost 350 questions that a com-pany should ask itself about its operations; and it pro-vides resources on related cultural and legal questions.It currently exists as a Microsoft Word document thatshould shortly be translated to a portable documentformat (PDF) file. In the future, it would be valuableto translate it into a user-friendly software program.

The questions are designed to help a manager withlimited knowledge of human rights identify contra-dictory company policies, or whether the institutioneven has policies in place. A corporation will clearlyhave a higher level of assurance that it has reduced its

liability vis-à-vis international human rights law if itworks with an advocacy group to answer the ques-tions.

With the HRCA in hand, a manager can:

1.) Better understand the underlying reasons that aparticular item was written into international law.

2.) Analyze the company’s activities by answering the350 questions.

3.) Identify potential pitfalls related to implement-ing human rights policies.

4.) Identify cultural conflicts that arise with the imple-mentation of company policies throughout itsoperations.

5.) Find further resources on international law.

Using the HRCAThe questions are the most important part of thisassessment tool. The following examples show how acorporation might put it to use.

EXAMPLE 1As Company A begins to use the tool, its staff willcome across the following question:

Has the company implemented a policy of nondis-crimination ensuring that employees’ and job appli-cants’ family status is not considered in the hiring,promotion, transferring and firing practices?

At first glance, they may answer yes. After all, forsome time Company A’s human resources departmenthas been promoting a diversity program and recentlyit initiated a special outreach project targeting femalerecruits. When the staff read the question descriptionin the HRCA, they are further convinced they don’thave a problem:

Sometimes employees have families that placehigher demands on them than usual, such as singleparents and children with disabilities. Managersmight assume that the individual in question is un-able to fulfill the requirements of a full-time job asa result. The decision, however, is for the employee,not the company. The company’s responsibility is toprovide employees with full advance details of their

Why do human rights matter to busi-nesses?Of the 500 largest corporations in the world in the year 2000:

36 percent had to abandon a proposed investment project, and 19%

to disinvest from a country because of human rights issues.

At the same time, only 44 percent of corporations’ codes of conduct

currently make explicit reference to human rights.

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EXAMPLE 2Some corporations have large complex operations thatspan many countries. This means that they may en-counter human rights issues in distant corporate op-erations related, say, to housing or religion, that theyhaven’t given thought to at the management level.One such HCRA item that could come into play:

Does the corporation refrain from compelling orcoercing its employees to purchase basic goods andsupplies from the corporation?

Let’s say that Corporation B operates facilities at aforeign subsidiary for staff housing and consumerneeds. They have a procedure in place that requiresthe employees to use the facilities, and they deduct afee from employee wages to run these facilities.

Staff at Corporation B looking at this HCRA questionwould immediately identify that it applies to theirsubsidiary’s operations. They can then analyze corpo-rate policy and assess whether the corporation “com-pels” or “coerces” such purchases. Without the use ofthe tool, the corporation might never be aware thattheir policy potentially contravenes the rights of theiremployees.

The corporation’s manager looking at this questionalso gets a description of why it was asked:

Employees should not be expected to use stores andhousing facilities owned by or related to the com-pany for which they work, as this places them in aposition of dependency. Employees must be able touse the other market options available in the area,so their salaries can be managed in the best waypossible to ensure their basic needs. In cases whereno other alternatives exist in the area where thecorporation operates, the corporation ensures thatall prices on basic necessities remain at or belowmarket value.

If Corporation B’s manager wonders how this ques-tion relates to international law, the tool will providehim the following references:

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cul-tural Rights (1966), Article 11 (1); ILO Social Policy(Basic Aims and Standards) Convention (C117, 1962),Article 11; and the ILO Protection of Wages Con-vention (C95, 1949), Article 7]

However, the manager may not be sure whether cor-porate practices constitute “compelling” or “coerc-ing” as referred to in the question. Therefore, the“Areas to Investigate” for each question include spe-cific practices to clarify the manager’s inquiry:

1. Employees’ wages are not withheld without theworkers’ consent to cover food and living expenses.

employment responsibilities and to ensure that nolarge-scale changes in the demands of the job aremade without the employees’ consent.

Proceeding to the legal references, the staff can seethat a number of international instruments form thebasis of this question:

[The above question is based on general principlescontained in the following: Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights (1948), Article 16; International Cov-enant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 26;International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cul-tural Rights (1966), Articles 2 (2), 3 and 7 ©; Conven-tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminationagainst Women (1979), Article 11 (1 and 2a and c);Convention on the Elimination of All Forms for Ra-cial Discrimination (1965), Article 5 (1) ILO Conven-tion on the Rights of the Child, Article 18; ILODiscrimination Employment and Occupation Con-vention (C111, 1958), Article 1; ILO Workers withFamily Responsibilities Convention (C156, 1981),Article 3 (2); Equal Remuneration Convention (C100,1951), Article 1]

However, when they go on to look at the section for“Areas of Investigation,” they immediately recognisethat they actually have a two-fold problem:

Areas for investigation:

1. Job applications and initial interviews do not in-clude questions regarding the applicant’s maritalstatus or family responsibilities.

2. During the interview for a position, the candi-date is fully informed of the amount of travellingrequired and any excessive or sporadic work hoursthat the successful applicant will be expected tomeet.

3. Employees confirm that their family status is notbeing considered in the hiring, promotion, transfer-ring or firing practices of the corporation.

In their job announcements, the Company A lists arequirement that applicants include personal infor-mation in their resumes. This includes marital status,which applicants could furthermore interpret as preju-dicial. In addition, the company does not have inter-view guidelines that would restrict questions on thesetopics during the interview process.

Therefore, using this HRCA question with related in-formation, the Company A can now identify a weak-ness in its operations that has the potential to lead toviolation of a specific human right. The company maythen decide it should fix the problem itself, or it maywork with a third party to design a system that elimi-nates this problem in future recruitment.

Human Rights and the Corporation 9

2. Company employees are not coerced, compelledor otherwise made to feel disloyal for purchasinggoods from non-company suppliers.

3. If the company is the only provider of basic neces-sities in the area, prices are kept at or below mar-ket value.

4. Employees do not report being forced or coercedinto purchasing goods from the company.

EXAMPLE 3Another HCRA question for managers to answer:

Does the corporation make workplace accommo-dations for newly established beliefs and religionsas well as for those that are well-established?

Corporation C’s manager has probably never discussedthis concern within the corporation. Therefore, he orshe may immediately go on to the question’s expandeddescription.

Even if a religion or belief system is of recent vin-tage, it can still be an important part of a person’svalue system and newly established movements canconstitute a “religion” for the purposes of interna-tional human rights protection (International Cov-enant on Civil and Political Rights, GeneralComments on Article 18, s. 2). If, however, the newreligion is based on a belief consisting primarily orexclusively in the worship, use or distribution of anarcotic drug, it is not owed protection under inter-national law (M.A.B. v. Canada (570/93), decision ofthe United Nations Human Rights Committee).Other non-drug-related religious activities and cer-emonies, which may be considered “odd” by theobserver, must not be denied protection simply be-cause of the peculiar nature of its practices. Instead,the corporation must have legitimate reasons forrestricting the activity. In general, legitimate limita-tions include those prescribed by law, which are nec-essary to “protect public safety, order, health ormorals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms ofothers” (International Covenant on Civil and Politi-cal Rights (1966), Article 18 (3). All restrictions onthe right of expression should be reasonable time,place and manner restrictions.

However, since the manager hasn’t considered theissue before, they can also look at the “Areas to In-vestigate” guidelines to learn how to determinewhether the Corporation C has a policy on this issue:

1. There are clear, written guidelines in the corpo-ration manual, establishing under what circum-stances expressive and religious conduct will beaccommodated, and under what circumstances itwill be precluded.

2. The corporation trains its managers regardingthe appropriate preclusion of expressive and reli-gious conduct on the work premises.

3. Prohibitions against expressive or religious activ-ity are narrowly tailored to meet important work-place needs. Prohibition guidelines are not sooverbroad as to restrict the exercise of harmlessactivity.

In this case, the manager may find that Corporation Cneeds to spend some time investigating its policies.

It should be noted that the HRCA provides valuablefirst steps in helping a corporation assess potentialweaknesses in its operations. It is then up to the cor-poration to develop a strategy and to remedy thesituation. The corporation may want to bring in anoutside consultant to help in the process or to engagein a stakeholder dialogue to develop effective coun-termeasures. The HRCA doesn’t provide solutions, onlyan assessment tool.

How the HRCA was developedThe final product—the Human Rights Compliance As-sessment—is in essence a translation of internationallaw into language and specifics understandable to abusiness organization. However, the development ofthis human rights “translation” did not take place in avacuum. Had it done so, it would not meet the needsof the corporations and the human rights advocatesthat rely on its use.

At the outset of the Human Rights and BusinessProject, a staff person was hired to manage the vari-ous interests of the DIHR and corporations. Regularboard meetings were held to determine project scopeand funding needs. The first step was to develop abrochure or set of guidelines to help companies un-derstand their role related to established internationallaw on human rights. This was a first small step toproviding companies a basic human rights course onvarious legal instruments and on their responsibilitiesas seen by the international community.

As the Danish companies began to realize that hu-man rights consisted of more than just child labor vio-lations (most of the press stories had revolved aroundthis specific problem), they began to demand moreinformation. With the continued support of the Dan-ish foreign ministry, funding for the staff position atthe HRBP project was maintained and more researchwas scheduled. Such research was needed to help com-panies understand international human rights law, asthese laws were written for states and were not de-signed for easy comprehension by business manag-ers.

10

It was decided that this research would not only in-clude a review of applicable international law (usingthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a foun-dation), but would need to be formatted in such away as to maximize use by the business community.

Ten Danish companies, representing a range of indus-trial sectors and with operations covering diverse partsof the world, willingly participated in the research.For example, ensuring a representative range of busi-ness or industry types was achieved by including com-panies who represented manufacturing, extraction,retail and services. An initial seminar was conductedat the Confederation of Danish Industries to intro-duce the research project to participating businesses.This was followed by a series of interviews with com-panies to establish and clarify the human rights issuesbusinesses face in different political, economic andsocial environments abroad.

This phase consisted of more than a year of meetingswith Danish companies to understand their needs andtheir operations. The DIHR had excellent access to thesecompanies through its partnership with Danish Indus-tries, which permitted the project to review and ex-amine a great deal of information that usually wouldnot be shared with outside parties.

What allowed us to create such a partnership? It wastiming, and a little bit of luck thrown in as well. Notevery organization or national human rights institutecan duplicate this process in their own backyards. Norwould we want them to expend resources on creatinganother tool like ours, as we have spent a great dealof energy in a careful consultative process to makethe tool universal. However, this kind of partnershipin itself is a useful mechanism or forum and can go along way toward fostering education and reducingmisperceptions.

Several factors facilitated this collaboration in late1990s Denmark: a lack of human rights policies in busi-ness operations, media coverage of human rights vio-lations implicating companies, a human rightsorganization with a national status, plus the businessassociation’s willingness to participate. Without thisconfluence of factors, the Human Rights and BusinessProject would not exist.

Companies responded to the situation by making itclear they wanted to understand human rights, whichcould best be facilitated by a set of tools set forth interms that were familiar to the industry, that couldbe applied inside the company to assess its own op-erations. So DIHR and Danish Industries launched along-term research project to develop the tool thatcame to be known as the Human Rights ComplianceAssessment.

When the HRCA development in Denmark was com-plete, the European Union sponsored a peer reviewprocess. This review allowed DIHR to take the HRCAdraft to 13 countries in the EU to identify any majorflaws. We disseminated the tool to the business com-munity, trade unions, research institutes, human rightsadvocacy organizations and various other civil societyactors. We were able to further specify human rightsstandards acceptable to both the business and thehuman rights communities. In all, we approached 95different participants. We were able to get inputfrom corporations like Shell and Carrefour and orga-nizations like Amnesty International and the Dutchgroup HOM.

As a part of the peer review process, corporationsand human rights representatives were identified andthen paired. Each pair was allocated particular com-ponents of the assessment tool and each participantwas asked to spend a few hours reviewing these rightsindividually, marking any areas where they would likechanges made. Each sample consisted of about 20pages of draft text. All participants were asked toreview the information generally, but to focus in par-ticular on whether the standards and indicators wereunderstandable, straightforward and comprehensive,and whether they demanded a reasonable level ofresponsibility from the business community. The sug-gestions resulting from this process are currently be-ing incorporated into the final version of the HRCAbefore it is released to the public.

INITIAL REACTIONThe process that brought together companies and theDIHR was unique and created a new and untestedpartnership. Some of the companies still didn’t under-stand what human rights were or how they affectedcompany operations, even after having problems ex-posed in the media.

One company approached by our research organiza-tion initially responded, “Human rights are based onfeelings and how on earth could a business addressfeelings?!”

Another company described human rights as a “pub-lic relations issue, with little that could be measuredby outside organizations.”

On becoming involved in developing the HRCA, thesetwo companies immediately realized the breadth ofhuman rights issues and how many of their existingpolicies were at odds with international law.

After working with us and developing the tool, theywere both able to appreciate human rights differ-ently: “I didn’t realize that there was so much law onthe matter… this really helps us to get our armsaround this issue.”

Human Rights and the Corporation 11

And, “The project’s approach will allow us to haveauditors review our business operations using actualstandards that can be identified and reviewed.”

While this is a good start, the real test will come overthe upcoming years as corporations and advocates putthe tool to use in real-life scenarios.

Next stepsAs of this writing, the HRCA has only just reached itscompleted form, so it has not yet been tested. It shouldgo through the first test phases by the end of 2004 orearly 2005, after which it will be released to the gen-eral public.

We may learn a great deal from other companies andhuman rights organizations who choose to use thetool. One challenge in the coming years is to adapt itto work in a variety of corporate settings. While thetesting is ongoing and the assessment is confidential,the final results of this process will be made public atsome point in the not-so-distant future. For example,Shell International has incorporated the HRCA into acomprehensive six-step program that it has tested inSouth Africa. Shell’s application of the tool will be veryhelpful to other companies who will wish to test theHRCA.

Furthermore, the Dutch human rights organizationHOM will be using the tool in the Netherlands, work-ing with other large Dutch corporations who wish todevelop human rights policies. Their work will beginlater this year when the HRCA is released publicly andmay eventually serve as a model for how business andadvocates can cooperate in using the tool.

Companies will eventually recognize the value of hu-man rights assessment products. Acceptance may bedifficult at first, especially if a company has not yetexperienced problems related to human rights. How-ever, any compliance officer, legal department or hu-man resources department concerned aboutcorporate risk levels should immediately see the ben-efit in this tool.

Without the HRCA, companies may well continue toview human rights as “fluffy,” a vague subject areatoo difficult to understand in a business setting. A toollike the HRCA will allow them to see concrete ways inwhich human rights can be assessed and then incorpo-rated into their daily operations. During the next fewyears, it may be up to nonbusiness organizations topromote this tool within the business community.

Consider an example of how such acceptance mightbe gained, where Corporation D chooses to use theHRCA after being pressured by media stories on em-ployees at its operations in a distant country. Withoutneeding to communicate directly with NGOs who

flagged the issue, it can use this tool to assess andunderstand the problem it is confronting.

Let’s say this EU corporation has operations overseaswhere most of its final products are assembled. Thecorporate manager in public affairs, or maybe the le-gal department, pulls up the HRCA files and scrollsthrough the tool to identify the questions related tomanufacturing. After the manager has responded tothe 30 to 40 questions in the relevant sections of theHRCA, he or she might identify weaknesses related toissues of “health and safety” and “employee free-doms to move freely” in some operations.

As the manager compares the media story, the pressrelease from the NGO who flagged the problem andthe HRCA items, it becomes clear that all are relatedto the complaints leveled against the corporation. Now,the manager has used the tool to identify specific un-acceptable practices that need to be corrected. At thispoint the manager can develop a plan of action forthe corporation to correct the problem or (as I wouldadvise) reach out to the NGOs involved and work onthe solutions together.

The HRCA and advocacyThis leads me to discuss the potential of the HRCA foradvocacy groups. Even if the tool starts slowly in thecorporate world, I believe advocacy groups for theirpart would also do well to use the tool in their dia-logue with corporations.

For example, suppose Corporation E produces furni-ture for the retail market. To maximize its competi-tive edge, it employs direct purchasing offices incountries where timber is harvested, and its purchas-ing agent searches for the cheapest timber contracts.Recently, the parent corporation has set up some poli-cies for timber purchasing to conform with require-ments for environmental certification. However, thosepolicies don’t cover human rights aspects of the tim-ber-harvesting relationship.

Let’s say that NGO A is an organized membershipgroup representing environmental protection and in-digenous rights. It wants to discuss practices relatedto harvesting and purchasing with the corporationbecause it has identified potential problems relatedto the corporation’s purchase of environmentally cer-tified timber originating in conflict zones. Followingcompany policy, local purchasing agents have ad-dressed the environmental concerns but have nottaken into account factors related to the labor forceor the land that was used for the harvest.

While NGO A wants to address specific human rightsviolations related to indigenous food production, indiscussions with corporate representatives it maywant to couch this discussion in terms that would ad-ditionally help foster corporate policies to avoid such

12

situations in the future. In this case, it could use theHRCA’s comprehensive summary of the subject to iden-tify appropriate questions and applications to bringto the corporation’s attention—complete with cita-tions of international human rights law—and to fur-ther identify areas to investigate within thecorporation’s operations and structure. Now, NGO Ais actually able to confront the corporation with a realproblem in language the corporation can hear andcan offer an impartial method to help the corpora-tion to assess the problem internally.

Using the HRCA tool in this way helps an NGO to beconstructive in its dialogue, but also backs it up withcontext-specific information. This is very important,as many times such dialogues with corporations pro-duce very vague assurances to do better, or result in astandoff where the corporation claims it cannot doanything concrete to correct the situation. The toolallows the advocate and the company to work to-gether to correct the situation.

The HRCA is designed to be generic to make it applyto as many contexts and situations as possible. Thisprovides opportunities for organizations dedicated tohuman rights in the business context to use the toolfor joint projects with business associations in theirown regions.

For example, let’s say an Argentinean group hasstarted to organize around corporate responsibility. Itcould approach its own national business or industrialassociations and discuss a joint project to adapt theHRCA to that region. Such a relationship could be de-veloped slowly and with minimal financial commit-ments from either party since the basic assessmenttool already exists. Instead, they could begin with dis-cussions of culture-specific adaptations to make theHRCA appropriate for use in Argentina.

A collaborative process like this helps both the NGOand the business association understand the funda-mental place of human rights in their own businesssetting and allows the two parties to develop a work-ing relationship to adapt the tool to their perceivedneeds.

Lessons learnedAny process or tool has its limitations or drawbacks.The Danish Institute for Human Rights found that itsability to find funding and general support for thisproject was limited by its function as an academic in-stitution. The institute exercised a great deal of careto continually get buy-in from Danish companies andto design a mechanism that would translate interna-tional law into understandable terms.

However, given the broad terrain covered by interna-tional human rights law, the HRCA tool became muchlarger than the companies involved had wanted. While,

they argue that company staff shouldn’t use morethan 20 to 40 hours of time in assessing the company,the tool is currently designed to take longer. Compa-nies have specifically noted that there are too manyquestions for a manager to answer quickly and thatthe size of the tool makes it difficult to use without anoutside consultant’s help.

It is unclear whether this factor will discourage use ofthe tool. I would argue that it only means that an-other step will be needed in the process to adapt thetool to corporate use—having someone or some grouptailor the HRCA for a specific company’s use. Using aconsultant may be the most practical choice for a com-pany. It will be up to DIHR and others to continue toanalyze whether the HRCA can be further compressedto address this corporate concern.

Another potential problem with our process was nothaving tested the final version of the HRCA for com-pany use. DIHR was in constant contact with compa-nies to understand their needs. This brought a greatdeal of information for the staff to analyze and buildinto the HRCA. However, there hasn’t been enoughtime built into the process to hand the tool off to ourpartner corporations to have them put the tool touse. Therefore, we don’t have any initial reactions onhow company managers actually use the tool.

This means we will need to follow up when corpora-tions begin using the tool. We will need to help themunderstand how it works and to identify what stylisticchanges will need to be made in order to improve thetool. However, this ongoing effort is similar to otherhuman rights initiatives such as The Global ReportingInitiative, which spent several years and a great dealof energy refining their business tools. The HRCA willneed to go through the same process once it is madepublic.

Even with some of these problems, one of the mostpromising possibilities for the HRCA is that it can pro-vide a clear framework and basis for human rightsdialogue among governments, businesses and NGOs.The HRCA is especially useful in this process in threeimportant ways: It provides a legal translation, it es-tablishes framework on which to base solutions and itfacilitates an informed dialogue.

Legal translation. The DIHR believes that this is thefirst attempt to comprehensively translate the Uni-versal Declaration of Human Rights into language thatis understood by both NGOs and corporations. Thisrepresents a major investment of time and consulta-tive development which does not need to be con-ducted again. This alone gives the HRCA its greatestvalue—universalism. Regardless of geography, anydialogue between businesses and/or NGOs that re-volves around the Universal Declaration of HumanRights can call on the HRCA for guidance. And, given

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the process to design the tool, both advocates andcorporations should have confidence that their dis-tinctive perspectives were used in its development.The HRCA goes a long way toward providing the legaltranslation needed to help any negotiation or dialoguerelated to this subject matter.

Framework. The HRCA goes beyond a simple legaltranslation by framing human rights issues as ques-tions in a business context. This creates a comprehen-sive framework that enables both companies andNGOs to focus on the appropriate issues when dis-cussing human rights violations. Too many times busi-nesses plead ignorance to the connection betweenviolations and their own operations, pointing insteadto governments as the guarantor of human rights. Atthe same time, NGOs may propose corporate rem-edies that undercut a company’s purpose of opera-tion (profit), or recommend actions that do not trulyfix the problem. Without an established frameworkand a set of parameters to operate by, both partiestend to have uninformed and unrealistic expectationsor suggestions to solve one another’s problems. The300+ questions in the HRCA help build the foundationfor these discussions. In this way, discussions in conflictsituations can be focused and can be aimed at practi-cal interpretation of international law.

Informed Dialogue. Many negotiations fail due to theinability of the parties to communicate with one an-other. This effect is usually intensified when discuss-ing international human rights instruments that aredifficult to understand and are not used on a dailybasis either by businesses or by NGOs. Companies andadvocates tend to speak past each other, since nei-ther are experts on the subject. The tool can providethe opportunity for all parties to become quasi-ex-perts on human rights in the business setting, creat-ing more informed dialogue and enhancing outcomesof protecting human rights around the globe.

ConclusionThe world is made up of different people with differ-ent perceptions of what is right and wrong. To createpolicies within a corporation that address everyone’sneeds is virtually impossible. However, we as a societywill be hard-pressed to find solutions to these prob-lems if companies do not recognize or respond to thebasic human rights problems they encounter, or anNGO confronting such a corporation cannot articulatetheir concerns in the corporate context. The HRCA isan important new human rights assessment tool thathelps both businesses and human rights advocatesbegin the crucial work of correcting and averting hu-man rights violations in corporate operations. In par-ticular, rather than arguing over the what and how ofa situation, our work can focus on solving the prob-lems identified by the HRCA tool.

For NGOs to engage productively in this process, theyneed to access the language of the business commu-nity. They also need to keep an eye out for windowsof opportunity for dialogue with companies. As men-tioned above in “The company problem,” corporationsactually need to find better ways to address humanrights problems, because these problems are bad forbusiness in a variety of ways. When such an opportu-nity develops, it may also be crucial to build allianceswith “bridge” organizations, such as business associa-tions or federations that already have a mandate toassist companies in addressing problems shared withintheir community.

For further information on this research, contact theDanish Institute for Human Rights. When it becomesavailable, you may also download the HRCA atwww.humanrights.dk

Further resources:Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rightswww.ohchr.orgThe UN Global Compactwww.unglobalcompact.orgBusiness for Social Responsibilitywww.bsr.orgCSREuropewww.csreurope.org

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Human Rights and the Corporation 15

Notes

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