PAX has a long track record in advocating for and advising corporate actors, governments and international standard-setting bodies on effective policies and norms on responsible business conduct in conflict-affected areas. Recently, following years of advocacy by civil society including PAX, voluntary norms on business and human rights are being translated into binding human rights due diligence legislation. Based on our long experience working with local stakeholders affected by corporate abuses in conflict-affected areas, PAX advocates for this legislation as well as related policies to effectively address the specific risks in conflict-affected areas, as well as to enhance corporate accountability and access to remedy.
Companies need respect international humanitarian law
Responsible business conduct in conflict-affected areas
In conflict-affected areas, companies often act as ‘external stress factors’: their presence and operations always impact conflict dynamics and the lives and livelihoods of local communities. Companies risk aggravating existing conflicts, provoking new ones, or facilitating severe human rights violations, potentially including war crimes. Governments need to ensure that they have effective policies, legislation, regulation and enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent corporate involvement in conflict as well as related grave human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. Companies themselves need to conduct ‘heightened’ human rights due diligence and to avoid contributing to conflict. They also need to ensure that they respect international humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict.
Human rights, due diligence and conflict
Due diligence is about analysing and managing risks. Companies are constantly analysing and managing the economic, financial and legal risks to their own operations. But companies also have a broader duty of care and a responsibility to respect human rights and the environment in all their business activities. They must therefore carry out ‘human rights due diligence’. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights and carry out human rights due diligence is laid out in the international normative framework on business and human rights: the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct. According to these standards, companies must identify potential and actual human rights violations in their value chains and prevent, end or mitigate these. In addition, companies need to provide for or cooperate in the provision of remedy to victims of violations that the company has caused or contributed to. Value chain refers to all business relationships of a company – from raw material supplier to buyer.
In conflict-affected areas companies have to be extra diligent and ensure that they identify risks in a timely manner in order to not contribute to conflict and related severe human rights violations or violations of international humanitarian law. In addition to standard human rights impact assessments, companies have to conduct, and frequently update, in-depth conflict analysis based on close stakeholder engagement. They need to map conflict causes, dynamics and actors and assess how their activities and business relationships affect these factors and vice versa. This is called ‘heightened’ (or sometimes ‘conflict-sensitive’) human rights due diligence. This standard of conduct is enshrined in the UN Guiding Principles and related guidance documents and in the recently updated OECD Guidelines.
Engagement and advocacy
PAX has a long track record in engaging with international standard-setting bodies, multistakeholder initiatives, corporate actors as well as governments on the effective development, implementation and enforcement of norms and standards on responsible business conduct in conflict-affected areas. Our advocacy work is strongly grounded in our in-country work with local stakeholders affected by conflict-related corporate abuses. As a member of the International Responsible Business Conduct Agreements, PAX advised Dutch financial institutions on responsible investment in conflict-affected areas, which we still do on a regular basis. PAX is a longstanding member of the Voluntary Principles Initiative (VPI), a multistakeholder initiative that promotes standards on security and human rights in the oil and mining sector, in which PAX has led work on the publication of guidance on conflict analysis and conflict prevention.
In recent years, we also advocated for the establishment and implementation of legislation to oblige companies to respect human rights and to enhance accountability in conflict-affected areas. Although the UNGPs and the OECD Guidelines are widely accepted as the authoritative global norm on business and human rights, the fact that they are non-binding ultimately fails to sufficiently protect people against corporate human rights abuses. Legislation that mandates companies to conduct human rights due diligence in accordance with the standards set by the UNGPs and OECD Guidelines is needed to enhance responsible business conduct and to increase accountability and improve access to justice and remedy. PAX is a member of the MVO Platform in the Netherlands and of several international civil society coalitions that advocate for the adoption and implementation of effective legislation. PAX specifically calls upon European as well as Dutch lawmakers to ensure that upcoming due diligence legislation explicitly addresses the heightened human rights risks in conflict-affected areas, and covers high-risk sectors such as the financial sector and the arms sector.
Finally, improvement of corporate and governmental policies on responsible business conduct in conflict-affected areas is promoted broadly throughout our campaigns e.g. Fair Finance Guide, Stop Explosive Investments, Don’t Bank on the Bomb, Stop Blood Coal, Don’t Buy Into Occupation and Unpaid Debt.
Policy Brief: Conflict & Due Diligence Legislation
