Companies operating in Indonesia should refer to the UN
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to prevent human rights
abuses while conducting their businesses, observers have demanded.
Marzuki
Darusman, chairman of the Human Rights Resource Center for ASEAN, said
the guiding principles would help corporations to apply human rights
principles while running their businesses. “The guiding principles will
provide direction to companies that might not have grasped human rights
concepts yet,” Marzuki told a seminar in Jakarta on Friday. “With the
guiding principles, the abstract concept of human rights becomes
concrete.”
Makarim Wibisono, executive director of the ASEAN
Foundation, noted that the United Nations encouraged the use of these
principles to address prevalent conflicts between businesses interests
and human rights. “Cases of human rights violations within the business
sector have remained unchecked for quite a long time,” he said.
In
2011, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the UN Guiding
Principles on Business and Human Rights. The framework was formulated by
Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Business and
Human Rights and Harvard Kennedy School Professor John Ruggie.
The
idea of creating this framework was initiated in the early 1970s after
the United Nations Economic and Social Council finished its study on the
impact of transnational corporations. This framework is based upon
three “interrelated and mutually supporting pillars”, which are; the
state duty to protect its citizens from abuses, the corporate
responsibility to respect human rights and greater access by victims to
effective remedy.
James Kallman, the president director of
Mazars, an international organization that provides human rights
consultancy to large corporations, said that human rights violations in
business practices were still a problem in Indonesia.
“Do you
know that there are over 1,000 human rights cases reported to the
National Human Rights Commission [Komnas HAM] every year in which
companies are accused of doing something wrong to their employees, or
more frequently to communities?” Kallman said. “The reports are related
to environmental and land acquisition issues in which the lands of
indigenous people are taken away,” he added.
Kallman said that it
was very important that business practitioners respected human rights.
“What Professor John Ruggie said was that companies must respect human
rights. What a powerful word. How come Professor Ruggie didn’t say
‘companies must comply’? It’s a totally different meaning. Respect is
something that comes from the heart,” Kallman said.
Kallman
pointed out some concrete ways in which companies could show their
commitment to human rights protection. “How can they do it? They have to
look at their businesses and see how their practices harm human beings.
They must analyze the risk. Does it hurt a worker or a member of the
community? How could it impact negatively on the life of someone? That
is what due diligence is about. To assess these risks,” Kallman said.
Kallman cited some consequences that companies could face should they
fail to respect human rights. “Nobody will invest, nobody will loan
money and eventually you will suffer losses in your share price. In the
long-term, you will cease to exist.” (nai/ogi) -
The Jakarta Post, 27/5/2013, Businesses told to respect human rights
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