United Nations Responsible Business and Human Rights Forum, Asia-Pacific
COLLABORATING PARTNER SESSION
27 September | 14:30-15:30 ICT
Effective Access to Remedy in Practice: Lessons learnt from operating a grievance mechanism
Organized by:
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Fair Wear
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Japan Center for Engagement and Remedy on Business and Human Rights
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Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
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Global Compact Network Japan
Background
Recent legislative developments recognise access to remedy as a key aspect of companies’ human rights due diligence. Operational-level grievance mechanisms represent an important avenue for rights-holders to access remedy as they allow for grievances to be addressed and remediated early. At the same time, companies can benefit from such systems as grievances provide valuable data for risk identification and actionable insights. While this development is welcome, getting this right is not an easy task. Particularly, ensuring accessibility for rights-holders, legitimacy of the mechanism and collaboration need to be carefully considered in order to provide effective access to remedy and successful remediation for the rights-holders.
Fair Wear and JaCER propose a session in the form of a panel discussion, looking at lessons and best practices from operating an operational-level grievance mechanism. A panel of representatives from Fair Wear, RSPO and JaCER will focus on the practical lessons learnt from implementing their grievance mechanism – keeping the perspective of the rights-holder at the centre, while encouraging collaboration between enterprises and other stakeholders to effectively remediate rights-holder’ grievances and ensure access to remedy. The panel discussion will focus on the practical lessons learnt related to implementing accessibility and legitimacy. What does this mean for remediation? How can we ensure the rights-holder is kept at the centre? How can collaboration between enterprises, industry initiatives and other stakeholders enhance effective access to remedy and support remediation for rights-holders?