Background

 

Rights holders across Asia and the Pacific continue to struggle to access effective remedies for business-related human rights abuses. While challenges vary across countries, business sectors, and other contexts, they commonly include fragmented, poorly designed or incomplete legal regimes; lack of legal development and enforcement; lack of awareness of the scope and operation of different types of grievance mechanisms; structural complexities within business enterprises; and problems in funding private law claims. These and other barriers to remedy are compounded by power imbalances between rights holders and business enterprises. 

Pillar III of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) outlines several types of grievance mechanisms: State-based judicial mechanisms (e.g., courts), State-based non-judicial mechanisms (e.g., administrative mechanisms), and non-State-based grievance mechanisms (e.g., business or multi-stakeholder mechanisms). Yet, many, if not most, of the barriers to accessing grievance mechanisms identified in the UNGPs still largely remain.  

In this context, since 2022, UNDP’s Business and Human Rights in Asia (B+HR Asia) Programme in collaboration with Macquarie University has been exploring “pressure points” to influence corporate decision-making. This includes the strategic use of the grievance mechanisms contemplated by the UNGPs, as well as so-called “complementary strategies”. 

Pressure points are a combination of mechanisms, tools, and strategies used strategically to pressure corporations to acknowledge and respond to human rights concerns of affected rights holders. Applying pressure can create new opportunities for engagement, prompting corporations to take these concerns seriously and address them meaningfully. Pressure points integrate grievance mechanisms and complementary strategies to effectively target corporate vulnerabilities, encouraging them to appreciate and respond to human rights abuses. This concept offers an innovative approach to securing access to justice for corporate human rights abuses.  

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Objectives

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• Provide an overview of “pressure points” available to rights holders, civil society actors, lawyers and others including: strategic litigation, shareholder activism, human rights benchmarking, civil society advocacy, NCPs, national human rights institutions, and UN Special Procedures 

• Highlight how rights holders, civil society actors, lawyers and others can leverage pressure points to seek access to effective remedy for business-related human rights abuses 

• Discuss how business leadership and investors respond to pressure points and identify engagement windows

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Questions

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• What does the concept of “pressure points” entail, how can it be employed across Asia and the Pacific, who stands to benefit, and how? 

• What are specific examples where pressure points have been employed successfully, and how can the region build on those experiences? 

• How do boards and investors view and respond to varied pressure points? 

 

Format

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The session will be structured as a panel discussion with opportunities for participants to engage. 

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Further reading and additional information

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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2018), Improving accountability and access to remedy for victims of business-related human rights abuse through State-based non-judicial mechanisms.

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UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (2021), Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights at 10: Taking stock of the first decade.

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Strategic use of grievance mechanisms. The concept of strategic litigation is already well-developed. Indeed, rights holders and civil society actors have used courts strategically; not to seek remedies for specific adverse impacts, but to pursue broader access to justice and corporate accountability goals (e.g., by setting legal precedents or making a case for legal reforms). But grievance mechanisms can also be used tactically in other ways. For example, statements made by corporations in judicial and non-judicial processes could provide the basis for “complementary strategies”.

Complementary strategies. If barriers to remedy seem unsurmountable, rights holders and civil society could employ complementary strategies to access remedy and drive changes in corporate conduct. Well-known examples include civil society advocacy and the complaints procedure under the UN Special Procedures. Moreover, rights holders and civil society actors are increasingly turning to innovative ways to place remedy on corporate agendas, including shareholder activism (see more), human rights benchmarking (see more), and social media campaigns (see more).

For example, pressure points:

• Combine grievance mechanisms and complementary strategies. A strategic and simultaneous use of multiple mechanisms and strategies allows the limitations of one mechanism or strategy to be addressed by another.

• May create new ‘engagement windows’ for rights holders and civil society actors to interact with corporate decision-makers;

• Seek to overcome power imbalances that affected rights holders face in holding corporations accountable through grievance mechanisms;

• Can be proactive and sometimes even pre-emptive, unlike access to remedy which is often reactive.

• May result in remediation directly or may enhance the chances of securing remedy through grievance mechanisms. For example, a civil society campaign may lead to an out-of-court settlement; and shareholder activism may encourage a corporation to engage constructively with an NCP dispute settlement process.