Huang Zhong: Business and Human Rights —— The Perspective and Experience of International Civil Society Organizations

At 9:30 am, April 22, 2021, Lecture series of Global Forum on Human Rights was held at A209, Research Building, Xueyuan Road Campus, China University of Political Science and Law. Huang Zhong, a senior researcher and representative of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, made a presentation for the teachers and students of the Institute of Human Rights on the theme of "Business and Human Rights: The Perspective and Experience of International Civil Society Organizations ".

At the beginning of the lecture, researcher Huang Zhong interacted with the students and asked about business and human rights issues. She began the lecture in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Next, she gave us a brief introduction of her main work and the business content in Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. She started the lecture with the working tenet and goal of the center - transparency, accountability and empowerment.

First, researcher Huang Zhong used the Center’s web content as an example to explain and share the “Transparent” goals of her work. Transparency primarily highlights information on the human rights impact of different types of business and business practices around the world and promotes public awareness and attention to the human rights performance of business by posting discussion and tracking processes on its website. In this part, researcher Huang Zhong introduces some prominent issues in recent years in the field of business and human rights in the context of case studies. The first iscorporate legal responsibility. There is growing recognition that corporate social responsibility initiatives and actions that emphasize corporate/industry autonomy have limited corporate discipline, in particular, business-affected groups need stronger laws and policies to ensure accountability for corporate human rights abuses. The second isclimate justice. On the one hand, facing the severe pressure of climate change, global energy consumption needs to transform to a sustainable and renewable mode. On the other hand, companies need to face various problems caused by the transformation, Examples include the employment of workers in the traditional energy sector, the rights of the most vulnerable groups under climate change, such as Indigenous communities. In particular, new human rights challenges in the renewable energy sector. Issues related to land rights and human rights in transitional mineral supply chains require the active role of business to mitigate and avoid negative human rights impacts. Third, the issue ofscience and human rights.It was mentioned as both cutting-edge and realistic issues. For example, false information and hate speech, the relationship between gig companies and workers, surveillance technology, etc. Today's society is developing rapidly, and the impact of enterprises on human rights has penetrated into all aspects of personal and social life. However, traditional regulatory methods have been unable to respond to these problems. What kind of responsibilities an enterprise should bear is a question that needs more in-depth research and open discussion. The fourth ishuman rights at sea, such as the human rights of crew and fishermen (including forced labor in the seafood supply chain). The fifth is aboutgender, business and human rights. Relying on the appeal and promotion of gender groups over the years, this issue has received more attention in recent years. The 2019 UN Guiding Principles have enriched the response to gender. In addition, the teacher mentioned that gender identity may be differently affected by corporate and commercial behavior. Gender inequality is rooted in gender norms, complex cultural prejudices and power imbalances. This may vary in every country/region/cultural background. If companies want to challenge the issue of gender inequality, they must first be aware of the impact of these complex factors on groups of different genders, and ensure not deepen gender prejudice and inequality on the basis of these existing problems, or benefit from gender inequality. The sixth is about theimpact of the epidemic on industry, commerce and human rights.The impact of the epidemic has brought the human rights responsibilities of industry and commerce, especially the issue of respect for human rights and decent work by enterprises in the global supply chain, into a more prominent and urgent position.

Moreover, researcher Huang Zhong introduced and shared the "accountability" and "empowerment" parts. Accountability means that the center informs and feedbacks related issues to related companies and seeks their responses. However, few companies could give effective and substantive responses. Empowerment means that the center hopes to seek co-governance with stakeholders (including companies and the government), and to encourage companies to move from "competition to the bottom" to "striving for the upper reaches." The center uses a series of benchmark assessments as the way to achieve this goal, with the specific requirements of the Guiding Principles as indicators. Based on six themes-governance and policy, human rights due diligence, relief and complaint mechanisms, human rights practices, response to serious allegations, transparency, a comprehensive evaluation system for multiple industries has been developed, and the company’s human rights commitments and performance are scored.

At last, researcher Huang Zhong briefly introduced the development trend of new issues in the field of Business and human rights, including social auditing, compulsory human rights due diligence, and worker-led social responsibility campaigns.

The lecture ended successfully with the warm applause of the students.

Written by Cui Yibing and Xu Yuqing