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business and human rights action plan

National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

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Federal register notice, stakeholder engagement, frequently asked questions.

  • Additional Information

A Federal Register Notice welcomed input on the update of National Action Plan for Responsible Business Conduct (NAP) through May 31, 2022, and received 48 written responses from stakeholders and the general public. The NAP team, which consists of officers from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, analyzed the recommendations received and shared them with relevant agencies to help inform commitments for the NAP. Please visit this page to see the written input received .

On June 16, 2021, Secretary Blinken announced on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration that we will soon begin updating and revitalizing the United States’ National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct (RBC). The Administration recognizes the need for a whole-of-government process to focus, improve, and expand its efforts to promote RBC.

RBC is a broad concept based on the idea that businesses can perform well while doing good, and that governments should create and facilitate the conditions for it to take place. The principles underlying this concept are encompassed in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises   and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights . They place importance on three aspects of the business-society relationship:

  • Emphasizing and accentuating the positive contributions businesses can make to economic, environmental, social progress.
  • Committing to robust due diligence efforts, including identifying and mitigating adverse impacts of business conduct, and remedying abuses where they occur.
  • Ensuring businesses are aware of and complying with legal obligations within their supply chains both at home and overseas.

The effort will bring together the U.S. private sector, civil society groups, and workers’ organizations to promote RBC by U.S. businesses operating and investing abroad. The last National Action Plan — the U.S. government’s first — was published on December 16, 2016.

We are updating the National Action Plan in light of the U.S. government’s commitment to promoting fair play, the rule of law, and high standards for global commerce in line with democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests. This includes supporting a foreign policy for the middle class by ensuring workers’ rights and a level playing field for the American worker; protecting the environment; combating the climate crisis; promoting rights-respecting technology deployment; and helping U.S. businesses to be global leaders in promoting respect for human rights and responsible conduct in the communities where they operate.

The revitalized National Action Plan will build upon the previous framework. We will increase our commitment to coordinate and advance policies that promote responsible business conduct, and work with all stakeholders to reach our joint goals.

Please continue to check back for updates to this website.

The NAP team attended over a dozen bilateral meetings with members of civil society and academia; led the coordination of U.S. Government agency participation in 10 roundtables organized by civil society and academia; and conducted 8 briefings for elements of the business community. Numerous U.S. government agencies attended events to consider key issues and recommendations.

Topics included:

  • ESG Investing
  • Development Finance
  • Extractives, indigenous issues, and security
  • Human rights defenders, and the role of business in promoting civic space
  • Procurement
  • Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence

In addition to the roundtable events above, the NAP team also briefed individual businesses, industry groups, and other experts to help familiarize them with the NAP and to solicit their input.

In line with best practice in NAP development, the State Department also encouraged U.S. diplomatic missions to post the Federal Register Notice on their websites in local languages, to encourage submission of local input, and to engage with groups adversely impacted by business activities. We appreciate the efforts of communities in sharing their experiences and recommendations with U.S. diplomatic missions and to civil society partners for circulating this opportunity in their networks.

The NAP team greatly appreciates the efforts of roundtable and briefing organizers. For more information or to contact the NAP team, please email [email protected] .

Q:  Why is the USG revitalizing its National Action Plan (NAP) and what do you hope to accomplish with the NAP?

A:  The Biden-Harris Administration made the commitment to revitalize the 2016 National Action Plan (NAP) to set higher goals for how the U.S. government will encourage businesses to achieve high standards of responsible business conduct (RBC) – and champion U.S. businesses that demonstrate best practices. It will also highlight what the U.S. government is doing, including with business, civil society, and governments, to foster an enabling environment for responsible business conduct.

We frequently hear from stakeholders that U.S. businesses represent something more than profit-making enterprises. U.S. businesses are innovative, seek to create local jobs, engage with and invest in local communities for the long-term, and are committed to building employees’ skills. We also recognize that all businesses, including U.S. businesses, can continue to strengthen their responsible business conduct policies and practices when doing business both at home and overseas.

The process of revitalizing the U.S. NAP provides the opportunity to deepen the conversation about responsible business conduct by highlighting best practices; enable stakeholders to make recommendations to the U.S. government on how to incentivize these practices; and develop collaborative approaches to emerging and critical issues in the RBC space. Advancing RBC increases U.S. business’ ability to serve as reliable, sustainable, and accountable actors overseas, and at home. Businesses that operate responsibly exemplify our country’s commitments to human rights, responsible investment, and sustainable and inclusive growth. RBC is a broad concept based on the growing evidence that businesses can perform well while doing good, and that governments should create and facilitate the conditions for this to take place.

Responsible business conduct is about more than just agreeing to abide by a set of principles or guidelines. It is about integrating responsible investment and business practices into corporate management policies and decision-making processes, consistent with U.S. and local laws and international standards, in a manner that promotes the rule of law and respects the rights of all stakeholders within a company’s workforce and value chain. It is about strengthening transparent and accountable business practices, including through conducting effective human rights and environmental due diligence, mitigating human rights and labor abuses through monitoring and verifying value chains, and identifying and addressing areas for improvement through the help of stakeholders.

We recognize that this is not always easy; it can be tough work, especially when businesses are engaging in post-conflict and other fragile environments. The U.S. and other governments can play a role in promoting a business environment conducive to responsible practices. In putting together the NAP, we strive to do our part together with businesses, workers’ organizations, civil society, and others to help us get this right.

Q:  What factors motivated the Administration to commit to updating and revitalizing the NAP?

A:  The Biden-Harris Administration is committedto a foreign policy for the middle class that will turn around the economic crisis and build a more stable, inclusive global economy. As part of this, the Administration is committed to working with governments to raise global standards for RBC, including on labor rights, human rights, anti-corruption, the environment, and sustainability, and is committed to leading a race to the top. We engage with others on a host of issues related to U.S. business conduct abroad, including combating corruption, promoting transparent practices, promoting responsible and sustainable supply chains, combating the climate crisis, addressing conflict minerals, combating human trafficking, supporting labor rights and worker safety, and responsible use of technology. We collaborate on these issues with governments, businesses, civil society, workers’ groups and international organizations including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In the course of these engagements, we have recognized the need for a revitalized framework on RBC that aligns with the Administration’s support for leveling the playing field for the American worker, advancing democratic values, and raising global standards for RBC. We understand the importance of leading by example and implementing this philosophy by continuing to review and improve its own efforts and by learning from others. The NAP is an opportunity for the U.S. government to explain what we expect of ourselves and reflect how U.S. businesses inform our work on global guidance with other governments, international organizations, and various stakeholder groups.

Q:  What will the NAP address?

A:  The NAP will address ways in which the U.S. government can promote and encourage established norms of responsible business conduct with respect to, but not limited to, human rights, including labor rights, anti-corruption, transparency, sustainability, protecting the environment, and combating the climate crisis, as well as the nexus of technology and human rights. In doing so, the NAP will:

  • help provide clear and consistent expectations for U.S. businesses in their global operations;
  • facilitate internal U.S. government communication and coordination;
  • strengthen communication among stakeholders;
  • identify U.S. government commitments and steps to assist in creating a rights-respecting, enabling environment for businesses operating abroad; and
  • further promote responsible business conduct.

The NAP will address what the U.S. government is doing in this space; highlight best practices, relevant initiatives, and experiences; and identify U.S. government commitments and actions going forward.

Q: Who will lead this process within the U.S. government?

A:  The State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor are leading the NAP process in close coordination with the National Security Council and the U.S. government interagency.

Q:  What topics will be included in the plan? What is on and off the table?

A:  As a first step in this process, the Administration took stock of our existing work and solicited input on ways in which that work can be improved and expanded. As we work through revitalizing the NAP, we will need to make decisions about our priorities and the scope of our efforts. We will solicit and consider feedback from stakeholders including the private sector as well as labor unions, civil society organizations, academic experts, international organizations, and affected communities.

Q:  What is the geographic scope of this exercise?

A:  We expect U.S. businesses to uphold high standards, regardless of where they are operating. The guidance set out in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, two guiding documents to the NAP, have both domestic and international applicability.

At the same time, we want to ensure that the time and resources dedicated to this NAP are invested strategically. That means considering challenges not addressed through other processes and focusing on the most serious risks. Many, though certainly not all, of the most acute risks related to business conduct are more prevalent outside of our borders, especially where governments are unable or unwilling to provide the resources necessary to ensure basic standards of security, rule of law, and governance.

We do not plan to impose rigid, categorical limits on the scope of this process. Many of the challenges that business face can only be addressed through concerted and coordinated action from the board room to the factory floor. Similarly, many of the policy levers and processes that can impact business conduct abroad are domestic in nature – for instance our procurement regulations to address trafficking in persons are implemented through domestic regulatory processes and are, we hope, having impacts on business conduct abroad and at home. In short, many of actions we commit to, and that we will encourage businesses to commit to, through this process are likely to influence business conduct regardless of where it takes place.

Q:  How will this NAP build on the 2016 NAP?

A: Much has changed since the release of the 2016 NAP. We have taken stock of new initiatives in the annual fact sheets issued by the Department of State on U.S. government efforts to advance business and human rights in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. We will take these fact sheets into account, as well as stakeholder input and additional factors, in revitalizing our NAP.

Q:  Which government agencies will be involved in this process?

A:  This process will take a whole-of-government approach involving many U.S. agencies.

Q:  The U.S. NAP is on “responsible business conduct.” How will that differ from other NAPs that are focused on corporate social responsibility or business and human rights?

A:  RBC is a broad concept based on the growing evidence that businesses can perform well while doing good, and that governments should create and facilitate the conditions for this to take place. The principles underlying this concept are encompassed in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. They place importance on three aspects of the business-society relationship: (1) emphasizing and accentuating the positive contributions businesses can make to economic, environmental, social progress; (2) committing to robust due diligence efforts, including identifying and mitigating adverse impacts of business conduct, and remedying abuses where they occur; (3) ensuring businesses are aware of and complying with legal obligations within their supply chains both at home and overseas.

Q:  Do you intend for this NAP to include legislative recommendations, and if so how will you engage Congress?

A:  We intend to consult with interested Members and staff. It is possible that in the process of reviewing how we can improve our efforts to promote responsible business conduct, we may identify issues that are best addressed through legislation.

Q:  How do you intend to address remedy issues?

A:  We will look at existing mechanisms, both legal and non-legal procedures, including those managed through governmental, corporate, and multistakeholder processes that are designed to provide oversight and address situations where companies are alleged to have engaged in irresponsible conduct. We will assess how our tools might be replicated, expanded upon, or strengthened. We will also be open to new and creative suggestions that are likely to prove effective, workable, and agreeable to relevant stakeholders. As with all aspects of this exercise, we appreciate recommendations on this topic.

Q:  If I can’t participate in stakeholder engagement sessions, how can I engage?

A:  We have provided an email address to receive written submissions on a rolling basis at [email protected].  We seek your input and concrete recommendations — what should be included in the NAP, what shouldn’t be, and specific suggestions of what the U.S. government should commit to or take action on in the plan.

Q:  Will you engage with foreign governments during this process and if so how?

A:  We have had conversations with several foreign governments on the NAP process, in order to compare practices and learn lessons from one another. We will seek to continue and expand these bilateral discussions throughout this process, in addition to continuing to work with others through existing, related multilateral forums and processes.

Q: What are the next steps in the NAP process?

A:  After soliciting and reviewing extensive stakeholder input, the NAP team is working with the National Security Council and the interagency to discuss potential commitments to include in the NAP. In the coming months, the NAP team will be conceptualizing the structure and launch of the NAP.

Q:  What happens once you publish the NAP?

A:  Our work on the NAP is just beginning, and we are excited about the road ahead. We do not view the creation and publishing of a NAP as an end unto itself, but rather part of our ongoing efforts to clarify and address these important issues.  As with other U.S. government national action plans, we will treat this as an iterative and evolving process.

Contact us at [email protected] .

Additional Information

  • 10th Anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Statement by Secretary Antony J. Blinken)
  • 2016 National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct
  • U.S. Government Efforts to Advance Business and Human Rights in 2020
  • U.S. Government Efforts to Advance Business and Human Rights in 2019
  • U.S. Government Efforts to Advance Business and Human Rights in 2018
  • U.S. National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
  • Economic Bureau Responsible Business Conduct
  • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor: Business and Human Rights
  • OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct
  • UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

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Priorities for the U.S. National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct

GettyImages-2477387

Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Report by ​Marti Flacks

Published February 21, 2023

Available Downloads

  • Download the Report 150kb

Executive Summary

The Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy places a global political order built on respect for universal human rights, and a global economy that provides opportunity for all, as fundamental to U.S. national security interests. The forthcoming U.S. National Action Plan (NAP) on Responsible Business Conduct provides an opportunity for the U.S. government to lay out its vision and strategy for engagement with business on these priorities. Releasing the NAP—or its key components—at the upcoming second Summit for Democracy would provide a particularly powerful message on this topic; U.S. companies are often the face of the United States abroad, and their human rights practices have both a symbolic and a practical impact on the U.S. government’s ability to meet its foreign policy objectives. The NAP can be valuable for both business and civil society by

  • laying out clear expectations for companies,
  • leveraging the influence of U.S. government financial resources,
  • committing to robust enforcement of U.S. law,
  • improving communication with external stakeholders, and
  • strengthening communication and coordination on this issue within the U.S. government.

This white paper provides recommendations for the Biden administration how to incorporate these five priorities into the NAP.

Introduction

To mark the 10th anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on June 16, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States would develop a new National Action Plan (NAP) on Responsible Business Conduct . The NAP provides an opportunity for the U.S. government to lead with its values by laying out its vision and strategy for engagement with the private sector to prevent, mitigate, and remedy human rights abuses associated with business activity.

Such abuses run starkly counter to the principles laid out in the Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy , which places a global political order built on respect for universal human rights, and a global economy that provides opportunity for all, as fundamental to U.S. national security interests. The strategy casts the private sector as a central player in multiple lines of effort, from developing resilient global supply chains for critical technologies to exposing disinformation campaigns by adversaries. The ultimate measure of success, however, will not be whether U.S. companies engage in these global efforts, but how they do so—including whether they adopt policies and practices that consider the social impact of their work. U.S. companies are often the face of the United States abroad, and their human rights practices have both a symbolic and a practical impact on the U.S. government’s ability to meet its foreign policy objectives.

“Across our development work, we will continue to employ best practices that distinguish the United States and our partners from our competitors: transparency and accountability; high environmental, social, labor, and inclusion standards; respect for human rights; and local partnerships supported by foreign assistance and sound, sustainable financing.”

— Biden Administration National Security Strategy

U.S. officials describe the performance of U.S. companies overseas as a strategic advantage compared to investment by China and others. This is often the case: U.S. companies tend to deliver a strong long-term value proposition, seek to provide local employment, and rarely engage in bribery. This likely explains why they are more trusted globally—by a wide margin—than Chinese companies, for example. On human rights, however, U.S. companies have room for improvement. A 2022 assessment of social performance by the World Benchmarking Alliance found that 84 percent of the U.S. companies reviewed scored zero points on efforts to carry out human rights due diligence (by comparison, 59 percent of companies from other G7 countries scored zero). As calculated by the author, the average score for U.S. companies across human rights components of the assessment was just 4.78 out of 20. In 2022, some U.S. companies were accused of sourcing products—from palm oil to car parts —from suppliers responsible for egregious human rights abuses. U.S. companies have themselves been subject to allegations of trafficking and labor abuse , violations of privacy , and bringing lawsuits to silence human rights activists , among others.

Although governments bear the ultimate responsibility to protect human rights under international law, the UN Guiding Principles framework—endorsed unanimously by UN Human Rights Council members, including the United States—holds companies responsible for respecting human rights throughout their business operations and supply chains. They do so by carrying out effective human rights due diligence to assess and address any potential human rights impacts. While many companies now do this voluntarily , only governments have the authority to mandate company action in this area.

Some jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have taken incremental steps in this direction, such as requiring public company reporting on steps to prevent the most egregious forms of abuses, like forced labor and human trafficking. But several major economies, including France , Germany , and Norway , have adopted legislation requiring companies to carry out human rights due diligence or risk legal consequences for their failure. By 2026, more than 17,000 multinational companies based in or doing significant business in the European Union will be subject to similar requirements .

Congressional action to mandate additional corporate due diligence on human rights is unlikely in the short term, and the NAP is not a vehicle to push that agenda. There are, however, myriad steps the executive branch could take using existing authorities to keep pace with other advanced economies on developing a more comprehensive approach to engagement with companies on human rights impacts. The NAP is an opportunity to identify these steps and carry them forward. 

The United States has taken significant action in this area already. It has issued guidance for companies on what effective corporate due diligence looks like in a number of high-risk contexts, including for companies that develop surveillance technology and those who may be sourcing from the Uyghur region of China. In 2015, the U.S. government expanded federal procurement regulations prohibiting contractors from using forced labor . U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has begun robustly enforcing an import ban on goods produced with forced labor—since FY 2018, over one billion dollars ’ worth of goods have been stopped at the U.S. border on suspicion of being made with forced labor. On the margins of the first Summit for Democracy, the Department of Labor announced a $122 million initiative to support freedom of association for workers in global supply chains.

These efforts all reflect a desire to mitigate human rights harms by business and are broadly consistent with President Biden’s “ worker-centric ” trade policies. Many, however, have been reactive to external events or opportunities, or have been sporadically enforced. Despite the central role of the private sector in the National Security Strategy, the administration has not developed a clear statement of policy on its expectations of business conduct. The NAP is therefore a critical opportunity to bring greater coherence and attention to robust ongoing efforts to engage companies, while also laying out a forward-looking vision for future expectations of private sector performance.

With this goal in mind, CSIS hosted a high-level convening in February 2022 with experts from the U.S. government, civil society, and academia to discuss priority areas for the NAP. Throughout 2022, CSIS hosted a regular expert-level meeting to expand upon the ideas presented at the roundtable and to encourage the U.S government to maintain momentum on the NAP process. CSIS staff also participated in half a dozen thematic roundtables hosted by external groups on specific NAP-related topics. These discussions were invaluable in identifying the most significant and realistic potential commitments the NAP could contain, and the recommendations contained in this white paper were significantly informed by these discussions. However, the views expressed here are the author’s alone.

Summary of Recommendations

Setting Expectations for Business

  • Issue a detailed statement of policy on expectations for business from the White House, including a request that each department and agency designate a senior official to lead its work on this topic, and set a regular schedule for public and private reporting on implementation.
  • Develop and disseminate an online repository of resources for businesses to identify U.S. government guidance on responsible business conduct.

Leveraging U.S. Finance

  • Announce, via the NAP, a comprehensive review and reconciliation of corporate human rights due diligence standards across U.S. government initiatives that finance or support the private sector.
  • Improve the implementation of procurement regulations on human rights.

Enforcing the Rules of the Road

  • Broaden enforcement beyond import controls, and beyond China.
  • Disclose more information about enforcement.
  • Leverage enforcement tools to create holistic policy solutions.

Improving Communication with External Stakeholders

  • Stand up a federal advisory committee on the role of the private sector in the administration’s human rights and democracy agenda.

Strengthening Interagency Communication and Coordination

  • Invest in diplomatic and engagement resources to match newly robust funding for technical assistance and law enforcement.

The plan to develop a new NAP was announced just five months into the Biden administration, in the hopes that releasing it early (in contrast to the Obama administration’s NAP) would allow the administration ample time for implementation and follow up. Instead, as a result of competing priorities and a commendable but protracted effort to engage a wide range of external stakeholders, the NAP will be released in the second half of the administration.

This does not diminish the value of the NAP, which can bring greater coherence and attention to the efforts undertaken across the U.S. government on responsible business conduct over the last two years. However, for it to have impact, it is critical that the NAP be released with sufficient time for implementation, and well before the 2024 election cycle begins in earnest.

The 2023 Summit for Democracy , scheduled for March 29 to 30, 2023, provides an ideal backdrop for the release of the NAP, or at least its key components. The summit process is President Biden’s flagship initiative to reassert U.S. leadership among democratic nations and to inspire allies to both reinforce their own democratic systems and help support democracy abroad. On February 3, the administration  issued a strong call to businesses to participate in the summit process by making their own commitments to support sustainable democracy. Announcing the administration’s NAP commitments is a natural complement to these company-driven actions. And although time is short, a small number of strategic, impactful initiatives such as those described in this white paper can result in an effective and impactful NAP.

The First U.S. NAP on Responsible Business Conduct

The first U.S. NAP was published at the conclusion of the Obama administration in December 2016 after a two-year process involving at least 16 U.S. departments and agencies , including the Departments of State, Labor, Commerce, and the Treasury; the U.S. Agency for International Development; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; and the Environmental Protection Agency. Given its timing, the first NAP was largely a compendium of previous actions taken by the Obama administration, with few ambitious new commitments. Under the Trump administration, some components of the NAP, such as the pledge by CBP to enforce the Tariff Act’s prohibition on entry of goods made with forced labor, continued to be implemented. Momentum around the monitoring and implementation of the NAP as a whole, however, was not a policy priority.

Focus Areas

While the NAP will take stock of existing efforts by the U.S. government to address the impacts of business on human rights, the more consequential component of the NAP will be its forward-looking commitments. The potential scope of the NAP is wide, encompassing the portfolios of dozens of U.S. government departments and agencies, but a small number of strategically impactful initiatives could generate a large return on investment, especially in the limited time now remaining to release the NAP.

Expert guidance for companies on how to effectively carry out their responsibility to respect human rights in their operations and supply chains already exists. Companies are more routinely hiring lawyers and consultants to provide advice on how to structure their business operations in a rights-respecting manner, as well as how to effectively comply with the growing number of laws and regulations on this topic around the world. As noted earlier, there is little momentum in Congress to adopt legislation that would mirror efforts underway in Europe to define and mandate by law human rights due diligence by companies. That does not mean, however, that the U.S. government needs to be silent on this issue. The views of a nation’s executive branch on effective human rights due diligence carry enormous weight. Japan’s recent Guidelines on Respect for Human Rights in Responsible Supply Chains is one such example.

The U.S. government has already weighed in on what effective due diligence looks like in several specific situations. An early example was the 2013 Burma Responsible Investment Reporting Requirements , an effort by the State Department to address concerns about allowing U.S. companies to invest in Myanmar for the first time in more than two decades. In 2017, the Department of Labor launched its Comply Chain app, an effort to help businesses identify child labor and forced labor risks in their supply chains. In 2020, the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor issued guidance on human rights considerations for the export of surveillance technology. Sanctions and export control regimes managed by the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce respectively also provide critical instruction for companies on business restrictions based on human rights grounds.

The egregious human rights situation in the Uyghur region of China and the mixed reactions by companies to it led to the first whole-of-government efforts to provide advice on human rights due diligence via the 2020 and 2021 Xinjiang business advisories . The 2020 advisory was a game changer in alerting companies to the risks of doing business in or sourcing from the region, while the 2021 version provided a more thorough overview of relevant human rights risks, applicable U.S. law, and recommendations for companies when considering their due diligence strategies with respect to potential operations and sourcing in the region. Since then, human rights–related business advisories have been issued for Hong Kong , Myanmar , and Sudan , and additional sector-specific guidance is forthcoming.

In response to a congressional mandate, in June 2022 the Department of Homeland Security issued its Strategy to Prevent the Import of Goods Mined, Produced, or Manufactured with Forced Labor in the People’s Republic of China . This strategy lays out for the first time an overview of the U.S. government’s view of effective human rights due diligence by companies, relevant not only to China but globally. This includes seven steps: (1) assess risks and impacts, (2) develop a code of conduct, (3) communicate and train across supply chains, (4) monitor compliance, (5) remediate violations, (6) ensure independent review, and (7) report performance and engagement.

This robust collection of information and guidance on responsible business conduct draws on the expertise of multiple departments and agencies. However, there is no single statement of policy that outlines the administration’s position and priorities with respect to the private sector on human rights issues globally and directs departments and agencies to adopt specific policies that implement the administration’s views. There is also no single place business can go to find this information; instead, it is scattered across nearly a dozen government websites. Through the NAP, the U.S. government therefore should consider the following actions:

  • Issue a detailed statement of policy from the White House and launch a process to implement it. Here lessons can be learned from the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (in this paper, “the trafficking plan”), which lays out both the administration’s policy as well as objectives and dozens of specific priority actions to end trafficking in persons. While the NAP need not contain the same level of detail as the trafficking plan, it should match its clarity of approach, as well as adopt its accountability mechanisms. There are two potential approaches to this for the NAP. The first is a statement of policy from the White House in the form of a national security memorandum or national strategy (similar to the June 2022 National Security Memorandum on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Associated Labor Abuses or the October 2021 National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality ) that incorporates and endorses the NAP by reference. The second is to issue the NAP directly from the White House. Either approach would give the administration’s policy positions on due diligence more weight with the private sector, not to mention be an improvement over the 2016 process, which saw an NAP issued by the secretary of state and accompanied by a White House press release . The statement of policy should request that each relevant department and agency designate a senior responsible business lead accountable for engaging in the NAP follow-up and implementation process, as well as for internal efforts to build human rights into their agency’s business engagement. Borrowing a page from the trafficking plan and the congressionally mandated President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PITF), leads should meet at least twice per year and provide a public update on implementation of the NAP, while their designees should participate in an ongoing Interagency Policy Committee process led by the NSC.   Note that the trafficking plan’s Priority Action 1.3.1 requires agencies to designate their assistant secretary for management or the equivalent as responsible for ensuring effective coordination between that agency’s procurement and human rights experts; moving forward, if the NAP adopts this recommendation, this responsibility could transfer to the senior responsible business lead for that agency.
  • Develop an online repository of resources for businesses to identify U.S. government guidance on responsible business conduct. This should hold existing U.S. government guidelines and compliance information and be updated regularly as new guidance is issued. It should be hosted by a business-facing component of the U.S. government, such as the Department of Commerce or Department of Labor, where it can be easily found by companies seeking relevant resources. Additional resources should be identified for socialization both internally across the U.S. government and externally to relevant stakeholders. This effort would also help implement—and give leverage to—the trafficking plan’s requirement that relevant agencies provide additional information to the private sector on forced labor risks in supply chains and enhance communication with companies on high-risk sectors.

A clear statement of administration position on responsible business conduct, including effective human rights due diligence, would allow the U.S. government to better incorporate this expectation in all arenas where it engages the private sector—particularly where it provides direct financial support to companies. While dozens of agencies engage with the private sector on a regular basis, the most salient relationships for the purposes of the NAP are the financial relationships. This takes place largely in two contexts: where the U.S. government is making decisions about project or company financing for work overseas, and where the U.S. government is procuring goods or services for itself. To leverage these relationships, through the NAP the U.S. government should therefore consider the following actions:

  • Announce a comprehensive review and reconciliation of corporate human rights due diligence standards across U.S. government initiatives that finance or support the private sector. The objective of this review would be to improve consistency across standards—including among the finance agencies, procurement officials, and U.S. CBP—as well as ensure adequate transparency in decisionmaking. Transparency and consistency in applying standards benefits both the private sector and project beneficiaries on the ground. The United States provides financial support to companies in order to achieve its trade promotion and development goals. It does this via concessional financing, risk insurance, loan guarantees, and, as of 2020, equity investment. In its capacity as a board member, the U.S. government also makes policy decisions about whether to support financing for projects by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Agencies also join with companies in public-private partnerships that may not result in financial support but do result in U.S. government endorsement. Each department and agency responsible for these vehicles applies human rights criteria to its decisionmaking in some way. The Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank base their assessments on the International Finance Corporation’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards, but they also add their own additional criteria. For example, USAID’s policy on private sector engagement references the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency often solicits firms to conduct environmental and social impact assessments, but it does not appear to publish on its website either human rights criteria for company selection or a framework for social impact assessments to be conducted by bidders. Agencies that provide diplomatic support for trade promotion activities, such as the Departments of Commerce and State, have their own guidelines for which companies and projects they will support. Within the framework of the UN Guiding Principles, there will still naturally be differences among agencies in terms of the depth and scope of human rights due diligence expected of private sector partners, in accordance with the type of project and U.S. government relationship. But there is value to each agency starting from the same foundational principles, and this consistency benefits both the U.S. government and the private sector. Policies also need to be updated to reflect the assumptions embedded in the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) about goods produced in the Uyghur region, as well as the withhold release orders (WROs) issued by CBP, following the process the DFC has already gone through with regard to solar panels. Products that cannot be imported into the United States due to forced labor concerns should play no role in U.S.-funded projects overseas.
  • Improve the implementation of procurement regulations on human rights. According to the White House , the U.S. federal government is the largest consumer in the world, spending $600 billion per year in goods and services. A significant portion of this spending is in sectors at high risk for human rights and labor rights abuses. The Department of Defense, for example—which accounts for nearly two-thirds of government procurement—has in recent years spent more than $1.5 billion annually in clothing purchases. Agencies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on seafood, while fruits and vegetables are regularly among the top five items procured by civilian U.S. government agencies. This spending gives the U.S. government a powerful tool to influence the human rights performance of companies seeking federal contracts, as well as wider market practices. The current Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) prohibit federal contractors, subcontractors, and employees from engaging in human trafficking or forced labor. Certain companies are required to draft compliance plans and certify that these requirements have been met—including that, to their knowledge, covered parties have not engaged in human trafficking or forced labor, or have adequately addressed it if they have. However, there are important limitations on the scope of these requirements, as well as on how they have been enforced, that the NAP could address. As outlined in an NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights paper, agencies lack human rights expertise that would allow them to identify high-risk acquisitions and to effectively review contractors’ compliance plans. The paper proposes creating a central hub for such expertise, upon which all procurement officials could draw for assistance in their daily work. Such an office could also develop more comprehensive guidance for implementation of the FAR, as well as proposals for addressing gaps in law or policy. It also proposes requiring that prospective contractors, in order to be deemed “responsible” under the FAR (and therefore eligible to receive U.S. contracts), have a satisfactory record of compliance with international human and labor rights standards—a proposal which would help broaden the scope of the FAR’s reach beyond forced labor to other egregious forms of human rights abuse carried out by companies.

Best practice guidance and leading by example through procurement and investment behavior are powerful “soft law” tools that the U.S. government can use to influence company performance on human rights. However, the NAP also provides an opportunity to better leverage the growing suite of “hard law” tools available to the U.S. government to require companies to take steps to address human rights violations in their operations and supply chains. To make these tools more effective, the U.S. government should consider the following actions: 

  • Broaden enforcement beyond import controls, and beyond China. Since 2016, there has been a dramatic expansion in the tools available to the U.S. government to hold corporate violators of human rights accountable for their actions, particularly with regard to forced labor. The lifting of the “consumptive demand” loophole in the 1930 Tariff Act jump-started an unprecedented enforcement effort by the Department of Homeland Security to prevent goods made with forced labor from entering the United States. In FY 2022, CBP detained nearly 2,400 shipments suspected of being produced with forced labor, up from 1,500 in 2021 and just 12 in 2019. The Tariff Act and the UFLPA —which has been interpreted by the Department of Homeland Security to effectively mandate that companies seeking to import high-risk products must carry out detailed supply chain mapping, down to raw materials, or face potential denial of import—are potential game changers in preventing human rights abuses in supply chains. They have been compared to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in terms of the attention corporate officers should be paying to its implementation. In 2018, the Department of Justice gained the ability to prosecute U.S. companies for some forced labor crimes that occur outside the United States even if the companies did not carry out the conduct themselves but relied on suppliers that did. Since 2019, the Department of Commerce has interpreted its export control authorities to include human rights abuses as a national security concern, adding nearly 50 companies to its Entity List as a result. Finally, the Global Magnitsky Act authorizes the U.S. government to sanction individuals and companies responsible for human rights abuses, and it was used for the first time in December 2022 against companies utilizing forced labor . Many of these “sticks” have been underutilized, however—with enforcement efforts largely focused on abuses by China or Chinese companies, or in some cases, not taking place at all. There have been no cases brought by the Department of Justice under its Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) authorities to date against companies for abuses in their supply chains, though the trafficking plan commits the Department of Justice to doing so. The December 2022 issuance of Global Magnitsky sanctions for forced labor was a critical milestone, not only for the use of the Global Magnitsky Act in this way, but for the work done by the Treasury Department to use beneficial ownership information to identify additional offshore holding companies subject to sanctions. However, it too was China-focused, and it targeted two companies already subject to other U.S. sanctions. The Department of Commerce has likewise only used its export controls to respond to the situation in China. Even before the UFLPA, CBP issued more WROs for China than any other country . Since the UFLPA went into effect in June 2022, UFLPA-related seizures accounted for approximately two-thirds of total forced labor seizures. The November 2022 WRO issued against sugar produced in the Dominican Republic was a significant move in the other direction, however, and this diversity of geographic targeting should continue. The NAP provides an opportunity to provide policy guidance for agencies to prioritize the use of these tools as a critical component of an overall strategy to end forced labor and other egregious human rights abuses by companies.
  • Disclose more information about enforcement. CBP currently publishes limited statistics on its enforcement of the Tariff Act and UFLPA, including the total number of shipments detained and total value of goods seized per quarter. Due to concerns about commercially sensitive information, it generally does not publish the names of companies whose shipments are detained, although companies frequently share this information themselves. The DHS has indicated that it plans to share additional information, but it has not specified what it will disclose. While the trafficking plan calls on the DHS to publish more information on the WRO process itself, the NAP should go further, committing the DHS to publish the full scope of information it is legally permitted to—including, to the extent possible, a breakdown of shipments targeted by sector and by geographic origin (especially for products whose components are made with forced labor) and information about the ultimate disposition of those targets (whether the goods were ultimately admitted, seized, or turned around).
  • Leverage enforcement tools to create holistic policy solutions, including for prevention and remedy. The potency of enforcement tools can easily result in an “enforcement first” approach to addressing many situations of egregious human rights abuse. Robust enforcement is appropriate, but it should not become an “enforcement only” approach—particularly when the majority of enforcement actions undertaken under the Tariff Act and Global Magnitsky Act are the result of submissions by nongovernmental organizations. Instead, the identification of companies or goods that subject to sanction should trigger—or better, be accompanied up front—by an interagency process to develop a strategy to address and remedy the situation. This process would be facilitated by an expansion of CBP’s work to identify and publicize criteria for the lifting of WROs, building on expertise at the Departments of Labor and State on effective remedy. It will also be easier to carry out as the focus of enforcement expands beyond China. Finally, embassies, USAID missions, and U.S. government experts should be aware of and tracking high-risk industries and projects and developing prevention strategies to avoid egregious abuse, as well effective remedy approaches to respond.

Just as there is no central repository for U.S. government policies on responsible business conduct, there is no designated point of contact within the U.S. government for companies to engage on human rights and related issues. The absence of a strong private sector role in the first Summit for Democracy is one example of this gap. Outside the NAP process itself—which is by definition temporary—there is no formal mechanism for either the private sector or other relevant stakeholders, such as labor and human rights groups, to weigh in on U.S. policies or approaches with respect to responsible business conduct. The U.S. government should therefore consider the following action:

  • Stand up a federal advisory committee on the role of the private sector in the administration’s human rights and democracy agenda. Currently, agencies with the strongest private sector relationships, such as the Departments of Commerce and Energy, do not have individuals or offices specializing in human rights, while agencies with a strong human rights focus, such as the Departments of State and Labor and USAID, engage with business more sporadically or only cover a subset of business and human rights issues. Engagement on specific country or sector situations takes place on an ad hoc basis as situations arise, with little opportunity for long-term planning. Advisory committees are a common approach adopted by dozens of U.S. departments and agencies to solicit regular public input into the policymaking process while ensuring transparency in government decisionmaking. This advisory committee, which could be called the President’s Advisory Council on Responsible Business Conduct (PAC-RBC), should include both private sector representatives and other relevant stakeholders, including human rights and labor groups that represent those impacted by business operations. It should be hosted by a business-focused agency such as the Department of Commerce, with strong participation by other U.S. government stakeholders, including the National Security Council, much like the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. The PAC-RBC should provide information, analysis, and recommendations to the president in order to address, among other potential topics, (1) steps the U.S. government can take to support responsible human rights practices by companies operating in the United States, as well as U.S. (or U.S.-listed) companies operating abroad; (2) opportunities for coordination and public-private partnerships between the U.S. government and the private sector to advance U.S. human rights and democracy policy objectives; and (3) alignment between U.S. law and policy and the laws and policies of key partners and allies on issues relating to responsible business conduct.

The NAP process has revealed limitations in U.S. government efforts on business and human rights–related issues. While some topics, like forced labor and human trafficking, are being tackled through congressionally mandated interagency processes, others are siloed in single offices within agencies or have no obvious lead. Higher-level and more consistent engagement across agencies on business and human rights–related issues is necessary in order to carry out the administration’s objectives in this space. The U.S. government should therefore consider the following actions to strengthen this communication:  

  • Invest in diplomatic and engagement resources to match newly robust funding for technical assistance and law enforcement. Congress and two successive administrations have made unprecedented investments to support engagement on business and human rights issues, most notably forced labor and human trafficking. The vast majority of these investments have gone to the Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB), which carries responsibility for implementing the labor provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and for capacity building on labor issues for foreign governments, unions, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as the DHS, which implements the Tariff Act and UFLPA. These much-needed investments have been game changers for those agencies’ ability to engage on labor issues. The president’s FY 2023 budget request asked for an additional $70 million, including 150 new personnel, for UFLPA implementation for CBP, while recently signed legislation increased ILAB’s budget by $10 million and institutionalized the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking within Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigation division with an additional $14 million and at least 35 staff. In order to implement the NAP fully, however, additional resources will be needed for diplomacy and corporate engagement, especially for the Departments of State and Commerce, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which has a growing role as discussions on enforceable labor provisions have expanded in the context of trade negotiations. As noted above, no one at the Department of Commerce is designated to engage on these issues, despite multiple equities in this space and several upcoming opportunities for impact. Efforts to support resilience in global supply chains, for example, should explicitly include a human rights component , while the Commerce Department’s Commercial Law Development Program could develop a practice area on business and human rights, supporting best practices in line with the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. Two years into the administration, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor still lacks a confirmed assistant secretary, and its business and human rights team remains miniscule in comparison to the growing staffs at the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security. The U.S. national contact point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises , housed in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, plays a unique role in mediating disputes between business and civil society over company compliance with the OECD guidelines, but its staffing and funding is uncertain from administration to administration and could be more firmly embedded institutionally. Finally, financial and personnel resources should be aimed not just at Washington-based agencies but also at U.S. embassies overseas. The Department of Labor is helpfully expanding its presence in these areas, but the Department of State and USAID should be equally present in order to engage in efforts to better align government norms on responsible business conduct bilaterally and multilaterally.

The release of a U.S. National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct is an important opportunity for the United States to lead with its values and advance the implementation of core components of the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy. Releasing the NAP, or its core components, in conjunction with the upcoming Summit for Democracy provides the best opportunity for alignment and amplification of these priorities, as well as sufficient time for this administration to implement its NAP commitments. A strategic, focused NAP—one that includes strong policy commitments, more effective external stakeholder engagement, and more robust coordination within the U.S. government—is realistic in this time frame and represents critical steps for the administration to take in support of its global human rights and democracy agenda.

Marti Flacks is the Khosravi Chair in Principled Internationalism and director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Support for this report was provided by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), a project of the Tides Center, and Humanity United. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICAR or Humanity United. 

This report is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

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U.s. department of commerce releases 2023 update to equity action plan, outlines new commitments to advance equity, office of public affairs.

Today the U.S. Department of Commerce released the 2023 update to its Equity Action Plan , in coordination with the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government equity agenda. This Equity Action Plan is part of the Department’s efforts to implement the President’s Executive Order on “ Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government ,” which reaffirmed the Administration’s commitment to deliver equity and build an America in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential.

“Homogeneity is the enemy of innovation. If we are to out-build, out-innovate, and out-compete the rest of the world, we need to ensure we’re harnessing and empowering Americans across the country by utilizing our greatest strength - diversity,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “That’s why the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to equity is so important and why I’m proud to see that reflected in this updated action plan. We fail to meet our full potential as a nation unless we harness the talents and strengths of all parts of the country, including those who have too often been left behind.”

Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves will participate in an event at the White House this morning to outline the updated Equity Action Plan, where he will be accompanied by Donna Ennis, Co-Director of the Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing (Georgia AIM), who is a winner of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC). The presentation will highlight  workforce pipelines put in place to ensure all Americans, including people from underserved communities, can participate in the innovation economy.

“Thanks to President Biden’s continued and steadfast commitment to supporting underserved and underrepresented communities, this Administration has made historic progress to achieving equity centered initiatives,” said Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves. “Through investments in business grants and funding opportunities, the Secretary and I are proud of the Commerce Department’s efforts in promoting equitable and inclusive capitalism that will pave the path to America’s economic prosperity.”

In alignment with the Department of Commerce’s strategic goals , the Equity Action Plan includes real-life examples of how America’s economy and people are best served by filtering our work through a prism of equity. America’s diversity is its competitive advantage – but only if everyone has an opportunity to fulfill their potential and fully participate in our economy.

The equity strategies associated with each strategic goal will assist in designing programs that will address barriers to equity and meet the needs of all Americans, including underserved communities.

  • Equity Strategy 1: Mobilize our nation’s diversity to fuel innovation and sustain our global competitiveness across geographic regions so that all communities have equal access to opportunities.
  • Equity Strategy 2: Expand growth opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, including in underserved communities.
  • Equity Strategy 3: Promote equitable economic development and career pathways to good jobs.
  • Equity Strategy 4: Use targeted investments and program design to address the climate crisis through mitigation, adaptation, and resilience efforts to ensure environmental and economic resilience.
  • Equity Strategy 5: Expand opportunity and discovery through data to inform and evaluate actions that improve community outcomes.

Since the release of its first-ever Equity Action Plan in 2022, the Department of Commerce has:

  • Released $3 billion in American Rescue Plan dollars across 780 awards through six innovative economic development programs.
  • Reduced the cost of bringing high-speed internet to unserved and underserved communities, and increased the resilience of internet infrastructure.
  • Invested $100 million to support the needs of tribal governments and Indigenous communities across 51 awards in 25 states and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Learn more about the Administration’s equity work at whitehouse.gov/equity and check out all Federal Equity Action Plans at performance.gov/equity .

To follow stories and posts across agencies, follow the hashtags #GovEquity and #GovDelivers on social media.

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Justice Department Releases Update to Equity Action Plan

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The Justice Department announced today the release of its 2023 Equity Action Plan (Plan), which is part of the Department’s broader efforts to implement President Biden’s Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government . The update to the Justice Department’s Equity Action Plan was finalized in December 2023 and will help guide the Department’s equity strategies in Fiscal Year 2024. The Plan memorializes the Department’s commitment to aiding all people – including historically marginalized and underserved communities – in accessing the Department’s programs and resources, navigating complex legal and regulatory hurdles to vindicate their rights, understanding the breadth of the Department’s work, and meaningfully engaging with Justice Department decision-makers.

“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that our programs and services reach every community that needs them,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The five strategies in this Plan seek to advance the Department’s broader mission to uphold the rule of law, keep people safe, and protect civil rights by working to remove the barriers that prevent vulnerable communities from accessing critical resources.”

For Fiscal Year 2024, the Justice Department has committed to advance the following five equity strategies:

  • Removing barriers to access to grant funding and resources for organizations led by and that primarily serve historically marginalized and underserved communities that have faced societal and systemic barriers in accessing and receiving Federal resources, as well as to communities disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization.
  • Supporting corrections and reentry programs that seek to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for justice-involved individuals (including those from historically marginalized and underserved communities and those disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization) including by improving healthcare coverage and continuity of care supports, reducing barriers to obtaining government-issued identification, addressing burdens associated with inability to pay fines and fees, and improving community supervision models to decrease incidence of revocation for technical violations.
  • Promoting an inclusive, diverse, and expert law enforcement workforce to strengthen public trust and improve public safety outcomes by removing barriers to representation within Federal, State, Tribal, local, and territorial law enforcement agencies for underrepresented communities.
  • Improving the response of law enforcement and criminal justice personnel to crimes that disproportionately affect women, girls, transgender individuals, and gender non-conforming people (including gender-based violence and sex trafficking) by providing and/or supporting: targeted training on how to investigate and prosecute these crimes; training and resources on trauma-informed and culturally responsive approaches, care, and services available to victims; and resources and support for building relationships with and increasing access to services and assistance for historically marginalized and underserved communities.
  • Ensuring that underserved communities (including people with limited English proficiency and people with disabilities, among others) are aware of and able to access legal services to address environmental crime, pollution, climate change, and other environmental hazards and have help navigating the legal and regulatory landscape necessary to secure access to clean water, air, and other natural resources.

These equity strategies seek to adhere to the mandates set forth in Executive Order 14091 and build upon the five equity priorities outlined in the Justice Department’s 2022 Equity Action Plan .

As this critical work evolves updates will be posted on www.justice.gov/equity . You can learn more about the Biden-Harris Administration’s equity agenda and related initiatives at www.whitehouse.gov/equity and review all other Federal Equity Action Plans at www.performance.gov/equity .

Watch Justice Department Releases Update to Equity Action Plan on YouTube.

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National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: an Experimentalist Governance Analysis

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  • Published: 08 September 2021
  • Volume 23 , pages 71–99, ( 2022 )

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  • Claire Methven O’Brien 1 ,
  • John Ferguson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2655-3258 2 &
  • Marisa McVey 2  

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National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation. In response to wider critiques of international human rights norms, and their failure to exact universal state compliance, experimentalist governance theory highlights the dynamic, dialogic and iterative character of human rights implementation as well as the role of stakeholders. In this article, we apply experimentalist governance theory to evaluate the role and character of business and human rights NAPs. Rather than attempting to evaluate NAPs’ ultimate consequences for rights-holders, which appears premature, we focus on NAPs processes. Specifically, we analyse NAPs processes in twenty-five states against five experimentalist governance criteria relating to (i) stakeholder participation; (ii) agreement on a broad problem definition; (iii) local contextualisation; (iv) monitoring and peer review and (v) periodic revision and learning. According to our findings, NAPs on business and human rights in most states demonstrate resemblance to the traits of experimentalist governance. In particular, our analysis points to the emergence of relatively sophisticated and demanding institutional governance mechanisms within NAPs — including the institutionalisation of complex deliberative processes. Nevertheless, our paper also identifies some significant shortcomings in NAPs, related to the lack of inclusion of vulnerable groups and the lack of explicit indicators and targets.

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Introduction

National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Footnote 1 Over the last ten years, 42 business and human rights NAPs have been published or are in-development worldwide. Fewer general human rights NAPs (39) were published over the forty-year period between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest (see, for example, De Felice and Graf, 2015 ; Methven O'Brien et al. 2016 ; Soh and Nam, 2018 ; Augenstein et al. 2018 ; Cantu Rivera, 2019 ; Hampton, 2019 ). While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation.

Pronouncing on the consequences of business and human rights NAPs for rights-holders or their ultimate effectiveness as drivers of regulatory change seems premature. On the other hand, the character of NAPs processes can still be meaningfully assessed. Building on earlier work (Ferguson et al. 2018 ; Methven O'Brien et al. 2016 ), as well as insights from practice, Footnote 2 this article makes a novel contribution to scholarly discussion of business and human rights NAPs by evaluating NAPs processes from the perspective of experimentalist human rights governance (de Búrca et al., 2014 ; de Búrca 2017 ).

Twentieth century critics of international human rights norms have questioned their effectiveness and legitimacy (Hathaway 2002, Neumayer 2005 , Goldsmith and Posner 2005 , Hathaway 2007 , Moyn 2012 , Posner 2014 ). Experimentalist human rights governance theory embodies one response to such critiques. This suggests a revised understanding of the mechanisms by which international human rights norms take effect within and beyond states. According to experimentalist tenets, implementation of international human rights norms is not a top-down, linear process of transposing specific rules to national contexts on a one-off basis. Rather, like certain other efforts to address complex transnational collective problems, human rights implementation is a dynamic, iterative and an “institutionalised process of participatory and multi-level collective problem-solving” (de Búrca et al., 2014 , p.477) which relies essentially on “cooperation between different actors and learning as a way to support accountability and transparency” (Armeni 2015 , p.882; see also de Búrca 2010 ; de Búrca et al. 2013 ; Goldstein and Ansell 2018 ). Another key feature of experimentalist governance is subordinate processes which apply discretion, informed by deliberation and local data, to devise programmes aligned with the goals of the international norms in question.

Besides being a sub-field of human rights, the experimentalist lens appears appropriate to business and human rights for other reasons. As argued elsewhere (Methven O'Brien and Ford 2019 ), business and human rights problems, in terms of abuses and implementation gaps, are endemic across economies; root causes are multiple and hard to diagnose; value conflicts are pervasive; and solutions, if they are to be had, imply the pooling of knowledge, resources and sustained multi-actor cooperation (Methven O'Brien 2019 ; see also Kenner and Peake 2017 ). Accordingly, business and human rights carries a likelihood of value conflicts across states, local policy variation and a need to evaluate effectiveness over time, rather than against a prior universal template.

On this basis, and advancing a line of inquiry embarked on by scholars in other policy fields (e.g. Goldstein and Ansell; Kenner and Peake, DeBurca), we consider it relevant to investigate whether business and human rights NAPs processes function in line with experimentalist governance theory. If such NAPs do already, or demonstrate potential in the future, to function as elements of an experimentalist business and human rights governance architecture, this might lend further weight to experimentalist and specifically experimentalist human rights governance theory. In addition, it might add strength to arguments favouring a framework convention approach to an international business and human rights treaty (Methven O'Brien 2019 ). On the other hand, if business and human rights NAPs lack the role or qualities required by experimentalist governance theory, it may be asked, whether they could do so, and if so, under what conditions. Alternatively, it might follow that other approaches to international standard-setting and national implementation of international business and human rights norms should be pursued instead.

This article is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces experimentalist governance theory and experimentalist human rights theory. Section 3 describes the antecedents to business and human rights NAPs, as well as the range of policies and measures that have, since 2011, been adopted to promote them. Section 4 considers guidance from human rights bodies on how business and human rights NAPs should be developed and what they should contain. This section further shows how the main recommendations contained in NAPs guidance map to the main characteristics of experimentalist governance outlined by its proponents. In Sect. 5, we evaluate existing business and human rights NAPs against these criteria. Section 6 discusses the significance of our findings and Sect. 7 concludes, highlighting questions for future research.

Experimentalist Governance: Context and Concept

Scholarship in political science, international relations, sociology and law upholds a difference between “government” and “governance”, as two paradigms of regulation and public administration. Footnote 3 Government, in this sense, connotes efforts by the state to achieve its aims through hierarchy, the exercise of formal authority, and “command and control”, for instance, via detailed legislative schemes backed by statutory enforcement agencies and powers (Braithwaite and Drahos 2000 ; Guy Peters 2011 ). Preconditions of the effectiveness of “government” on this account include a single legislative centre and unitary bureaucracy enjoying accurate knowledge of societal conditions; social uniformity; a high level of social (and market) compliance with enacted rules; and adequate resources to support centralised oversight and enforcement mechanisms.

During the era of the modern state, this concept of “government” was historically prevalent. In the later twentieth century, however, some of its prerequisites appeared to weaken.Sociologists and socio-legal scholars highlighted the relative autonomy of society from direct government intervention (see, for example, Teubner, 1983 ; 1997 ). Besides, during the 1970s and 1980s, market mechanisms found political favour while national and international actors attributed economic problems to over-reliance on, or intrinsic failures of, centralised government planning (Chimhowu et al. 2019 , p.79; World Bank 1983 ). At the same time, new transnational environmental, security and technological challenges triggered the rise of supranational institutions. Authority was observed to have dispersed “upwards to the supranational level, downwards to subnational jurisdictions, and sideways to public/private networks” (Hooghe and Marks 2001 , p.4). Given the limited mandates and resources of international institutions, this encouraged, amongst others, the growth of public–private partnerships, while international organisations “increasingly orchestrated new forms of authority involving non-state actors” (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.734–735), for instance, via policy networks. Footnote 4

In this context, governance emerged as a “research agenda on order and disorder, efficiency and legitimacy all in the context of the hybridization of modes of control that allow the production of fragmented and multi-dimensional order within the state, by the state, without the state, and beyond the state” (Levi-Faur, 2012 ). Often found in domains governed by soft law, governance was observed to involve “actors other than classically governmental actors, or indeed the absence of any traditional framework of government” and “approaches which are less rigid, less prescriptive, less committed to uniform outcomes, and less hierarchical in nature” than conventional regulation (de Búrca and Scott 2006 , p.2).

“New governance” was coined as an umbrella term denoting “a range of processes and practices” identified by researchers “that have a normative dimension but do not operate primarily or at all through the formal mechanism of traditional command and control type legal institutions” (de Búrca and Scott 2006 , p.2). Across policy domains, new governance regimes were found to emphasise the “accommodation and promotion of diversity… the importance of provisionality and revisability – in terms of both problem definition and anticipated solutions—and… the goal of policy learning” (de Búrca and Scott 2006 , p.3). New governance arrangements incorporated “states, sub-state units, international organizations, civil society organizations, private actors, and others” in arrangements lacking formal hierarchy (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.726, see also, Keohane and Victor 2011 ; Ruggie 2002 ). In the specific setting of the European Union, the “Open Method of Coordination” (OMC) sought to drive coordination and convergence across the EU’s member states towards commonly agreed goals, in areas where binding laws were lacking, via peer exchange, dialogue and review, reporting against standardised metrics as a basis of benchmarking to promote their achievement, and National Action Plans (NAPs) (Panke and Haubrich-Seco 2016 ).

These developments triggered reflection on the legitimacy of such mechanisms for achieving public goals or implementation of legal norms, given that they could not lay claim to be representative or enjoy delegated authority in conventional terms. Ideals of deliberative rationality here entered into play (Fung and Wright 2003 , Schaffer 2012 p.4). Footnote 5 Likewise, new governance entailed accountability challenges (Black 2002 ; Bovens 2006; Sabel and Simon 2006; Black 2008 ) and a need to reflect on the concept of law itself, stimulating interest in legal pluralism (De Sousa Santos 1995 ; Teubner 1997 ; see generally Berman 2020 ).

Experimentalist governance theory took shape against this background (de Búrca and Scott 2006 ). Experimentalist governance, scholars suggested, could be identified in policy areas characterised by persistent uncertainty or value conflicts, where governments or other parties could agree on a broad problem definition but lacked the know-how or agreement necessary to isolate specific solutions (Búrca et al. 2013 , p.740). Footnote 6 Experimentalist governance regimes “set provisional goals” rather than fixed rules. In response to social complexity (Nance and Cottrell, 2014 ) or where the issue at hand is characterised by “insufficient information and uncertainty” (Bar-Siman-Tov, 2016 , p.193; see also, Sabel and Zeitlin 2012 ), experimentalist regimes institutionalise stakeholder participation and processes for revision. Footnote 7 This approach according to scholars produces greater learning, adaptation and reliability over time (Sabel and Simon 2011 , p.55).

Experimentalist human rights governance was advanced in response to recent critiques of international human rights norms that questioned their effectiveness and legitimacy (Hathaway 2002, Neumayer 2005 , Goldsmith and Posner 2005 , Hathaway 2007 , Moyn 2012 , Posner 2014 ). For example, in her analysis of the human rights treaty system, de Búrca ( 2017 , p.279) Footnote 8 argues that the “iterative interaction between civil society actors, UN treaty bodies, and governmental actors”, transforms the human rights treaty process “into [a] more participatory and accountable experimentalist governance system[]” (p.310). According to de Búrca ( 2017 , 279), not only does an experimentalist governance account better reflect the actual operation of the treaty regime, the interaction between key actors, especially when associated with an “ active domestic civil society”, tends to be associated with positive domestic human rights outcomes.

In their 2013 account, de Búrca et al ( 2013 , p.723) identify five key features of experimentalist governance Footnote 9 :

1.Openness to participation of ‘stakeholders’ who must share at least a broad perception of a common problem in a non-hierarchical process Footnote 10 ;

2.Articulation of a framework definition of a problem or goals which identifies open-ended objectives to be pursued;

3.Implementation is “left to ‘lower-level’ actors with knowledge of local conditions and considerable discretion to adapt the framework norms to these different contexts” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.478; de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.739; Sabel and Simon 2011 , p.55);

4.Continuous feedback from local actors incorporating “mutual monitoring and peer review, involving elaborate processes of consultation that are horizontal rather than vertical in structure”, serving an accountability function (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.742);

5.Revision and re-evaluation : goals and practices are “periodically and routinely re-evaluated and, where appropriate, revised in light of the results of the peer review and the shared purposes” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.478).

Experimentalist governance, then, is a theory derived from institutional observation by social scientists. Yet, it is also viewed by its socio-legal scholar exponents as “normatively attractive” (de Búrca 2017 , p.281) insofar as it is claimed to encourage “participatory, deliberative, locally-informed, and adaptive problem solving” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.480; see also Armeni 2015 , p.876) while being able to address contemporary transnational challenges in ways that state-based actors and “traditional” governmental processes, for a variety of reasons as alluded to above, cannot (de Búrca et al. 2014 ; de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.727; Methven O'Brien 2019 , p.204).

On the above basis, we suggest, an experimentalist governance analysis of business and human rights NAPs is relevant while also making a novel scholarly contribution. First, the implementation via NAPs of international soft law standards on business and human rights, namely the UNGPs, represents a further empirical setting for testing experimentalist governance theory and experimentalist human rights theory specifically, advancing a line of inquiry embarked on by others (cf. Nance and Cottrell, 2014 , p.284; Kenner and Peake, 2017 ; Goldstein and Ansell, 2018 ; de Burca, 2017 ). Second, it may illuminate whether the national implementation of business and human rights norms mirrors or diverges from that of other human rights standards. Third, it may shed light on the ongoing debate over how an international business and human treaty should be designed, in terms of substantive content, institutionalisation, oversight and accountability mechanisms. Last but not least, though it is not yet timely to draw final conclusions on the efficacy of NAPs as drivers for regulatory change, business behaviour, or the effectiveness of enjoyment of human rights for individuals and groups in the market sphere, evaluating NAPs processes in terms of experimentalist governance may yield tentative indications of what to expect in these areas in future.  It may also help to better qualify understanding of the reasons for ready pursuit of business and human rights NAPs by states and others, while also guiding reflection about what may be expected to result from this trend in the years ahead.

Business and Human Rights NAPs: Antecedents and Current Practice

In this section, we provide an outline of the emergence of NAPs in the area of human rights before providing an overview of the current state of play with regard to business and human rights NAPs. In Sect. 4, we then consider the extant guidance on the development of business and human rights NAPs in order to more explicitly consider how such guidance tracks against the experimentalist governance criteria outlined above.

National Action Plans on Human Rights

Since the 1980s, intergovernmental bodies have encouraged the adoption of NAPs as a device to advance states’ fulfilment of international obligations and policy commitments. This approach has been applied across domains including “greening public procurement” (European Commission 2020 ), public health (Tuangratananon et al. 2019 ), tobacco control, gender equality (PeaceWomen 2020 ), anti-corruption and human trafficking (ICMPD 2006), climate change, biodiversity, corporate social responsibility as well as human rights.

Regarding the latter, the first textual reference to the adoption of national action plans can be traced to provisions of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (Chalabi 2014 , p.391; see also Chalabi 2018a ; 2018b ). Later, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action urged states to “consider…drawing up a national action plan identifying steps whereby that State would improve the promotion and protection of human rights” (UN OHCHR 1993 , p.17; Chalabi 2014 ). To date, 39 countries have developed such plans, often with support from international agencies, such as the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights or UN Development Programme, and linked to post-conflict or democratic transition. Footnote 11

Subsequently, the use of NAPs to advance implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2014 ) and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Lorion, 2019 ) has been advocated. States have regularly been recommended to develop NAPs by UN treaty monitoring bodies, such as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Chalabi 2014 ).

Neither the UN Human Rights Council 2008 Framework, UNGPs UN Human Rights Council 2011 on business and human rights nor associated UN Human Rights Council resolutions identify specific mechanisms for national implementation, whether NAPs or alternatives such as focal points or government coordination mechanisms. Footnote 12 The mandate of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights established by UN HRC Res 17/4 embraces the promotion of the UNGPs at national level but does not advert to any national processes or structures in particular (UN HRC 2011 ).

Nonetheless, the idea of business and human rights-specific NAPs quickly grew in prominence. Their first mention in a formal policy appeared in the European Commission’s 2011  White Paper on Corporate Social Responsibility. This invited Member States “to develop … national plans for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles” (European Commission 2011, p.13–14), reflecting the EU’s reliance on NAPs in other policy areas as a mechanism to promote convergence across member states where legal obligations were lacking, as mentioned above.

The European Council’s ‘Strategic Framework on Human Rights and Democracy’ (Council of the European Union 2012 ; Council of the European Union 2015 ) reiterated a call to states to develop business and human rights NAPs, as did later Council-focused recommendations (e.g. Dutch Government 2016; Finnish Government 2019; German Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs 2020); and Conclusions on Human Rights and Decent Work in Global Supply Chains (Council of the European Union 2020 ). Beyond the EU, NAPs have been recommended by the UN Human Rights Council (UN Human Rights Council 2014 ), Council of Europe (COE 2014 ) and Organization of American States ( 2014 , 2016 ), while the OECD recommended its NAPs as a tool to advance “responsible business conduct” (OECD 2017 ).

Human rights actors also engaged in advocacy and the production of guidance on business and human rights NAPs. Recommendations by the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) urged the need for a “human rights-based approach” (UN 2003) encompassing inclusion, transparency, participation and accountability in NAPs processes (ENNHRI 2012 , 2020 ). A UN special mandate, the Working Group on Business and Human Rights, issued NAP guidance along similar lines (UN Working Group 2012 ). Following wide-ranging consultations, the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) and International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) published a ‘Toolkit’ on business and human rights NAPs (DIHR/ICAR 2014 ; 2017 ). DIHR and ICAR then collaborated with other organisations to produce NAPs guidance addressing specific sectors, themes or categories of rights-holders, such as children’s rights (DIHR, ICAR and UNICEF 2016); the extractive sector (Due Process of Law Foundation and ICAR 2017); the tech sector (DIHR and Global Partners Digital 2020) and private security (DCAF and DIHR 2020a , b ).

Business and Human Rights NAPs: Current Practice

By the end of 2020, twenty-five states had published business and human rights NAPs (DIHR 2020a , b ). Nineteen of these came from Council of Europe states and fifteen from EU member states. Asian states account for three; Latin America for two; and the USA the last (Table 1 ). While adoption of NAPs across world regions is hence uneven, regional differences could diminish in future: of seventeen states developing business and human rights NAPs the Americas and Asia each account for five, Africa for four and Europe three (Table 2 ). Also at end 2021, four states were producing revised, updated or second business and human rights NAPs (DIHR 2020a , b ). A few states have been prompted to develop NAPs by recommendations received through the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process (ibid.). Footnote 13 An overall total of forty-two published and in-development business and human rights NAPs compares with thirty-nine general human rights NAPs produced since1993 (OHCHR 2020).

*Business and human rights chapter within broader human rights NAP.

Guidance on Business and Human Rights NAPs

Two guidance documents on business and human rights NAPs have been widely relied on by government and other actors in the NAPs processes just enumerated. These are the DIHR-ICAR Toolkit (2017, 2011) and UNWG NAPs guidance (UNWG 2014 , 2016 ). This section considers how far these documents’ recommendations map to the character and role of local implementation hypothesised by experimentalist governance theory; in doing so, this section highlights the considerable degree of overlap between NAP guidance the experimentalist governance criteria outlined above.

Both the DIHR-ICAR Toolkit and UNWG NAPs guidance envisage an iterative cycle: the five steps in the diagram extracted from the Toolkit (DIHR/ICAR 2017) also constitute the “essential” phases flagged by the UNWG NAPs guidance (2014, 2016, p.ii) (Fig.  1 ).

figure 1

Diagram extracted from the Toolkit (DIHR/ICAR 2017) constituting the “essential” phases flagged by the UNWG NAPs guidance

Both guides first emphasise the role of stakeholder involvement throughout a NAP process. This requires “stakeholder mapping” exercise, establishing a multi-stakeholder advisory or working group and steps to secure participation of marginalised or at-risk groups (DIHR/ICAR Toolkit 2017, p.20–23). In addition, it entails a need for transparency: information about “key milestones in the NAP process and participation opportunities such as dialogues, workshops, consultation events, and comment periods” should be readily available (see also UNWG, 2014 , p. 14).

Likewise, concerning the scope, content and priorities of a NAP, both documents highlight the need for alignment to the UNGPs. To this end, they share the view that a baseline assessment should be undertaken “to inform the formulation and prioritisation of actions in a NAP” (DIHR/ICAR, 2017 p.25; cf ENNHRI) and as a datum to inform stakeholders in the context of consultations. A baseline assessment should also promote a NAP’s context-specificity, a key criterion for the UNWG.

Turning to implementation, monitoring, and review, the DIHR/ICAR Toolkit (2017, p.36) asserts that:

“Publishing a NAP is not the end of the process, but rather the beginning of the implementation phase. Incorporating an implementation plan, monitoring and review mechanisms, and reporting mechanisms into a NAP increases the likelihood that the commitments made in the NAP will be implemented in practice” (p.36).

Implementation and effective monitoring are thus regarded as closely linked. They are also said to require that a NAP’s objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-specific (SMART) and, besides government-led progress reviews, the undertaking of independent and peer-reviews, and monitoring at national, regional and international levels. Stakeholder monitoring arrangements should include “state institutions, business, and civil society” (DIHR/ICAR (2017 p.37).

Finally, both guidances urge NAPs’ periodic revision and renewal. The UNWG includes review, monitoring and regular updating as one of its five essential NAP criteria (UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights 2014 , 2015, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights 2016 ). According to the Toolkit,

“Incorporating a commitment to update a NAP allows the lessons learnt during creation, implementation, and review to be put into practice and demonstrates a commitment to progressively realise the “protect, respect, remedy” framework of the UNGPs” (DIHR/ICAR 2017 , p.47).

Table 3 maps the elements of NAPs guidance as mentioned against de Búrca et al.’s ( 2013 , 2014 ) features of experimentalist governance, namely openness to participation of ‘stakeholders’ in a non-hierarchical process (EG1); articulation of a broadly agreed common problem (EG2); implementation by lower-level actors with local knowledge and contextualisation (EG3); continuous feedback, reporting, and monitoring (EG4); and revision and re-evaluation involving peer review (EG5).

This shows how the attributes of experimentalist governance, on one hand, and the recommendations advanced by the NAP guidance documents considered above, on the other, overlap. Given this, if actual NAPs processes undertaken by states and stakeholders align with NAPs guidance, they too may have attributes that are characteristic of, or which could contribute to, experimentalist governance.

Vice versa, if NAPs practice across states does not follow NAPs guidance, this is also potentially informative. If divergences between NAPs guidance and actual NAPs processes are observed uniformly across all states this might be because, for instance, experimentalist governance is essentially less likely in the area of business and human rights than in other policy domains or areas of human rights (de Búrca 2017 ; Armeni 2015 ; Kenner and Peake 2017 ; Goldstein and Ansell 2018 ), for instance, due to greater and universal power differentials between key players (Birchall 2021 ). Or, if traits of experimentalist governance are observed in some, but not other states’ business and human rights NAPs, this might trigger a search for contingent, rather than structural, factors to explain this.

Preliminary Analysis of NAPs Against Experimentalist Governance Criteria

Twenty-five states have concluded business and human rights NAPs processes. The www.globalnaps.org (2020) website presents, for each published NAP, a breakdown of its content into different topics and themes, for example, children’s rights, corruption, forced labour and modern slavery. In addition, www.globalnaps.org presents for each NAP various materials describing or relating to its production, such as reports from stakeholder meetings, baseline assessments, inputs and commentaries from NGOs, business associations and other actors. For this article, we reviewed the www.globalnaps.org data on the twenty-five published NAPs; the texts of those NAPs; and other external sources and commentaries. Next, we present our initial qualitative analysis of these materials according to the following categories, derived from Table 3 : (i) stakeholder participation; (ii) agreement on common problem; (iii) implementation, monitoring and reporting, and; (iv) revision and re-evaluation involving peer review.

Stakeholder Participation in NAP Processes

Stakeholders participated in the production of NAPs in all of the twenty-five states that published a NAP (Fig.  2 ).

figure 2

Stakeholder participation in NAPs

As these data show, the extent and modalities of stakeholder engagement varied widely across states, however. Mechanisms to facilitate stakeholder involvement included national multi-stakeholder conferences on business and human rights (for example, Chile and Colombia); stakeholder dialogues for specific sub-national regions (for example, Colombia, Italy, Sweden); separate workshops for business and civil society (for example, Chile, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia, and the UK); questionnaires or interviews (for example, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland; public consultations or written submissions (for example, Belgium, Chile, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Slovenia; Switzerland, Thailand, the UK); and establishment of a multi-stakeholder steering group (for example, Colombia, Czechia, Germany and Switzerland).

In Colombia, Czechia, Germany and Switzerland, a multi-stakeholder steering group was given the actual task of developing the NAP. Germany’s NAP Steering Committee, for instance, comprised representatives of six government ministries (Fig.  3 ), trade associations, Germany’s national human rights institution, a trade union representative and one civil society representative. Footnote 14 Besides, in Germany, over 100 stakeholders attended an opening conference at which they provided inputs from which ten priorities to be addressed by the NAP were extracted. In addition, a sequence of expert hearings were organised jointly,

“by organizations from different stakeholder groups (government, trade unions, business, civil society). NGOs, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, were [also] nominated… Each stakeholder group selected 10 experts who represented them and their approaches during the meeting…” Footnote 15

figure 3

Ministries or bodies organising NAP processes

In the Netherlands, by contrast, a consultant was engaged on behalf of the government who conducted “27 interviews with more than 50 people representing the main stakeholder groups (business, civil society and implementing organisations) during the pre-drafting phase, as well as a round of single stakeholder consultations during the drafting process”. Footnote 16  In France, twelve stakeholder groups were consulted, while input to the NAP was provided by France’s national “CSR Platform”. In Belgium, stakeholders were invited to “submit ideas and propositions on relevant actions” in the initial stages. Footnote 17

In terms of categories of stakeholder participating in NAPs processed embraced: national and local government departments and agencies; national human rights institutions (NHRIs); civil society organisations (CSOs); businesses (individual businesses and umbrella organisations); labour and trade unions; international agencies; academics; and specific groups of rights-holders. All but two NAPs processes (Lithuania and South Korea) involved both business and civil society participants. However, only in nine states were steps taken to involve groups at heightened risk of vulnerability or marginalisation, such as indigenous peoples or persons with disabilities. Footnote 18 In addition, NAPs have generally not entailed or been preceded by actual stakeholder mapping exercises to identify relevant constituencies. Indeed, only nine NAPs processes took steps to integrate vulnerable groups. As a result, across business and human rights NAPs processes,

“older persons, children, LGBTI, persons with disabilities, women, representatives of indigenous communities, the self-employed, and small and medium-sized businesses –[have] not been adequately included” (Ferguson et al. 2018 ).

Most NAPs also provide for stakeholder engagement in follow-up and review mechanisms, discussed further below.

Agreement on Framework Definition of a Common Problem

Business and human rights NAPs and NAPs processes appear to embody a broad problem definition shared across states and stakeholders. All published NAPs are explicitly linked to the UNGPs with the majority loosely structured according to the three pillars of the UN Framework (Morris et al. 2018 ). All NAPs also express a government commitment to implement the UNGPs.

Guidance suggests that NAPs should systematically reflect on each of the UNGPs and its relevance in the national context in question (ENNHRI 2012, p.5). Yet only two states’ NAPs (Italy and Spain) are structured to address each UNGP individually (see Fig.  4 ). A National Baseline Assessment (NBA) to audit gaps in national UNGPs implementation and identify “the most salient human rights issues in a given context” (DIHR/ICAR 2017, p.25) can be one mechanism by which such analysis can be undertaken.

figure 4

NAP structures

To date, NBAs have been undertaken by eleven of the twenty-five states with NAPs. In seven of these, the NBA was completed before the NAP, while in four states, publication of the NBA followed the NAP. Footnote 19 Of the seven NBAs completed beforehand, five were produced by external organisations on behalf of the state; and two by the state and other organisations jointly. Germany’s NBA was developed by the German Institute for Human Rights and involved three rounds of consultations with stakeholders from government, trade unions, business and civil society. Footnote 20 The content of Germany’s NBA drew on these consultations and the NBA, officially adopted by the NAP steering committee, was key to orienting next steps in the process.

In Georgia, similarly, a coordination group including representatives from the government’s Human Rights Secretariat, an NGO and the NHRI was established to jointly undertake the NBA. Here, three consultations with the civil service, business, and civil society organisations were held. A draft NBA was shared with these entities and their feedback incorporated into the final NBA. Stakeholders in Germany and Georgia hence appear to have participated in problem definition and the identification of policy responses. Yet, this does not seem true of all NBA processes. In Norway, for instance, an NBA was devised “through interviews with officials from various ministries and government institutions” while broad stakeholder involvement not realised. Footnote 21

Implementation, Monitoring and Reporting

NAP guidance recommends that NAPs should contain measures to monitor and communicate about their implementation. A majority of published NAPs do so: indeed, seventeen states’ NAPs commit to producing progress reports and to establishing a committee or forum to monitor NAP implementation. Yet, as Table 4 shows, only eight states have actually produced the promised progress reports (Belgium, Chile, Columbia, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK). Furthermore, most NAPs do not identify indicators by which progress towards implementation could be meaningfully measured, milestones or final deadlines for achievement of their stated objectives.

A minority of NAPs do include targets and mechanisms to support monitoring. Germany’s NAP included an aim:

“that at least 50 % of all enterprises based in Germany with more than 500 employees will have incorporated the elements of human rights due diligence described in this chapter into their corporate processes by 2020… [if] the target is thus missed, the Federal Government will consider further action, which may culminate in legislative measures” (German Federal Foreign Office, 2016 , p. 10).

When it was found in 2020 that only “13 to 17 percent of the enterprises observed complied with the NAP requirements” (German Federal Foreign Office, 2020 ), a process was triggered that culminated in the adoption of a new national corporate human rights due diligence law. Footnote 22 Companies covered by the law must identify risks of human rights violations and environmental destruction by direct suppliers and, where relevant, indirect suppliers (Methven O'Brien 2021 ). Yet, this concrete approach to monitoring, particularly the threat of legislative tied to specific milestones, is unique. As Table 4 shows, albeit twelve NAPs assign responsibility for actions to named entities, six NAPs identify timelines for achieving some or all actions; seven NAPs rely on indicators or dates for completing actions.

In addition, as noted elsewhere, there is a noticeable a tendency for NAPs to recapitulate existing measures, linking these to the UN Framework ex post fact o (Augenstein et al. 2018 ; Ferguson et al., 2018 ), rather than including UNGPs-inspired measures ex novo .

Revision and Re-evaluation Involving Peer Review

Both experimentalist governance theory and NAPs guidance emphasise the need for an ongoing cycle of policy revision. Such an approach is observable across a number of states in practice. As shown in Table 1 , Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the UK have published revised or updated NAPs; Poland has committed to fully revising its NAP; and the Netherlands seems set to release an updated NAP shortly. Spain’s NAP situates itself within a “continuous process”, promising an updated version after three years. Belgium’s NAP likewise commits to evaluation and possible revision after three years. Czechia’s NAP states that it is a “living document” that can be updated and Chile’s includes a “roadmap” specifying thirteen issues for consideration in a second version.

As regards peer review, albeit without any formal mandate, various regional and international organisations have convened peer learning events on NAPs in recent years, with wide state participation, in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as inter-regionally. The Council of Europe has established an online platform for information exchange on NAPs and a standard questionnaire for states. Together, these might in principle unearth information needed to facilitate peer review, yet COE states have so far proved somewhat unresponsive to this initiative (Methven O'Brien 2021 ).

Experimentalist Business and Human Rights Governance: Are NAPs Measuring Up?

The last section summarised results of our analysis of NAPs processes in twenty-five countries against characteristics derived from recommendations made by NAPs guidance and traits of experimentalist governance as proposed by scholars. Footnote 23 Here, we explore the potential significance of the findings reported and highlight aspects warranting further research.

Our first observation was that stakeholder involvement is widespread across NAPs; generally spans stakeholder categories; and in many cases is supported through the establishment of institutions or structures. In itself, this appears positive and in alignment with experimentalist governance tenets. On the other hand, dedicated measures to give voice to rights-holders at heightened risk of business and human rights abuses were generally lacking. From the perspective of experimentalist governance, especially in the absence of defined legal mandates or the involvement of elected representatives, “democratic legitimacy” depends on participation (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p. 785); more particularly, it requires “targeted empowerment of marginalised social groups” (MacDonald and MacDonald 2020 , p.536). This study has not revealed whether NAPs open up business and human rights governance in ways that tend to mitigate existing patterns of inclusion and exclusion, or whether they rather reproduce, or even exacerbate, the influence of “self-selecting and usually already powerfully positioned participants” (de Búrca 2010 , p. 236). Given the common centring of NAPs on the UN Framework and UNGPs, it may also be that dissenting parties who for whatever reason do not accept this framework as a point of departure, or marginal actors lacking capacity to engage with abstract international human rights norms, are already effectively excluded. What this article has shown, then, is the urgency of investigating and finding ways better to qualify the character of stakeholder participation in NAPs, and measures to promote this, given the extensive role notionally afforded to stakeholder involvement in NAPs development in practice.

Second, and subject to the caveat just noted, it appears that NAPs are being developed on a platform of broad agreement amongst stakeholders around the definition of a regulatory problem encapsulated in the UN Framework and UNGPs. Still, if government, business, civil society actors and others have been prepared prima facie to engage in discussion of the application of specific international human rights standards to the national setting, the depth of agreement, and its motivation, remain unclear. Relatedly, this study has not disclosed the extent of conflicts between actors in a given NAP process, or across NAPs, over interpretation of norms, the identification or selection of priorities. Deeper-reaching individual case studies and comparative studies should be undertaken to supplement our findings in this regard.

At the same time, there is a relatively high degree of variation in the structure and approach of NAPs, with few favouring, for instance, the transparent UNGP-by-UNGP approach advocated by guidance. Such inconsistencies are a challenge for certain forms of accountability: NAPs cannot be meaningfully compared, on this basis, by applying simple binary parameters. Yet such divergences across NAPs’ content, and underinclusivity, are actually expected by experimentalist governance theory, which foresees a lack of agreement between governments on precise approaches or solutions, value differences, and thus a persisting role for the exercise of regulatory discretion by local actors. This indeed forms part of the rationale for scrutiny via peer-review, considered further below.

Thirdly, its learning potential is a key virtue of experimentalist governance according to its proponents. Rather than wedding actors to one set of policies for all time, experimentalist governance processes should be an engine for their collaborative critique, ongoing reformulation and revision. A commitment to revision reflects the inherent “uncertainty” of the problem to be addressed and where participants are conscious of the “limits on their foresight, and of the possible fallibility of initially preferred solutions” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.479). Experimentalist governance regimes “must enable participants to learn continuously to redefine the problems they face” (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.740) as well as revising the “goals, metrics and procedures” that have been established initially (Sabel and Zeitlin 2008 , p.272).

The progressive learning dimension of revision however has obvious preconditions: amongst them are reliable data on regulatory responses and outcomes, as well as openness of governments to update instruments. In this area, published NAPs do both well and poorly. NBAs, which may be viewed as a proxy for local knowledge on the business and human rights state of play, and a ground zero against which to measure progress over time, are sparse. Granular national policy commitments linked to numerical or even qualitative targets are few and far between. Given this, informed reflection on how effective specific policy approaches on business and human rights are will be hard. Peer review at regional or international level will have little to “bite” on beyond anecdotal or case reports which, while not without significance, are an basis for evaluating policy effectiveness (Ferguson et al. 2018 , p.10). Overall, without a more extensive infrastructure of targets, benchmarks, indicators and reporting formats, this and their concomitant capacity to contribute to policy “learning” will remain weak.

This carries implications for our findings, fourthly, relating to revision of business and human rights NAPs. To recall, a majority of NAPs commit to revision, while a smaller number have already been revised. On one hand, then, our data suggests that states are well-inclined to revision and updating of NAPs, in accordance with experimentalist governance tenets. On the other hand, lacking the institutional and informational apparatus needed to evaluate progress and effectiveness of business and human rights policy measures, it is unclear how second- or subsequent NAPs can embody informed reflection or “policy learning”. As Ferguson et al. report, though the UK produced a revised NAP following stakeholder consultation, “its contents simply repeated much of the original NAP” and contained “very few forward elements and… no objectives to monitor” (2018, p.9).

In experimentalist theory, “peer review of the diverse experience of the actors attempting to realise the desired outcomes” is an essential component of learning (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.479). Uncertainties associated with a broad problem definition, combined with the likelihood of value conflicts within and across states, mean that policy choices will vary locally, and legitimately so. Discursive evaluation, structured according to commonly defined parameters, will be more appropriate in this setting, than imposing specific legislative forms or numerical goals and this is the end to which peer review should be directed. Peer dialogues around business and human rights NAPs have been a somewhat regular occurrence over recent years. This is welcome. Nevertheless, peer events until now have lacked the character of peer review, as practiced in other institutional settings, for instance the European Union’s Open Method of Coordination, the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, or in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Presentations by states on their NAPs experiences cannot substitute for structured scrutiny by peers and stakeholders on the basis of a selection of salient parameters, as recently highlighted by the European Council (EC 2020).

Finally, this study permits some reflections on the value of experimentalist governance theory and its application in the human rights domain. According to de Burca (2017, p.277), rather than operating as the ineffective, top-down hierarchical process characterised by its critics, human rights regimes, in reality, operate in a more interactive manner that resembles the core architecture of experimentalist governance. Moreover, she maintains that “human rights regimes… function at their best as dynamic, participatory, and iterative systems”. Our study lends support to de Burca’s (2017) observation, by highlighting the iterative and participatory processes that generally underpin NAP processes. Nevertheless, our study also highlights some of the limitations of operationalising experimentalist governance in an empirical setting; in particular, if one wants to assess the effectiveness of human rights experimentalist governance — this would require in-depth, longitudinal case study analysis that would ideally incorporate an element of qualitative enquiry with stakeholders that have engaged in participatory NAP processes.

In tandem with their broadening uptake by states, NAPs have attracted growing interest from business and human rights scholars. On one side, concerns have been raised that NAPs are used by governments as a pretext for avoiding ‘hard’ regulation (Cantu Rivera 2019) or substantive standards (Jensen, Lagoutte and Lorion 2019 ), or even that they embody a tendency towards “neoliberal bureaucratisation” of human rights (Hibou 2015, cited by Lorion 2019 , p.241). On the other side, it has been suggested, NAPs might “trigger government commitments to implement business and human rights standards, so delivering better ‘vertical’ alignment of national laws, policies, and institutional practices with international commitments” (Methven O'Brien et al. 2016 ). In addition, they might encourage the “cross-government participation needed to secure ‘horizontal’ policy coherence” and, if they promote “transparency, inclusion, participation, and non-discrimination… [also] empower rights-holders and generate space for dialogue and greater mutual understanding between stakeholders” (ibid, p.121). If, moreover, NAPs “include clear and evidence-based targets, milestones, and indicators, they ought additionally to provide a basis for holding governments to account and over time doing so on a comparative basis with other countries” (ibid., p.121).

NAPs and NAPs processes may be regulatory in themselves, exerting effects on a range of actors. However, they are also potentially pre-regulatory, inasmuch as they may lead to or create conditions encouraging the adoption of substantive policies, legislation or other measures, or indeed of other pre-regulatory networks or dialogue mechanisms. Given this, pronouncing on the ultimate consequences of business and human rights NAPs for effective enjoyment of human rights seems premature (cf. Cantu Rivera 2019). On the other hand, the character of NAPs processes can still be meaningfully assessed. Accordingly, this article has sought to evaluate NAPs processes from the standpoint of experimentalist governance theory. Our analysis has investigated how NAPs processes are unfolding and whether they reflect the character and role afforded to local implementation mechanisms hypothesised by experimentalist governance theory and as observed in other human rights and governance contexts.

This study has discerned a prima facie resemblance between NAPs and local implementation devices premised by the institutional architecture of experimentalist governance (Goldstein and Ansell 2018 , p.243). Consequently, NAPs may have potential to provide the basis for an institutional framework to address the complex problems that emerge in the business and human rights context and as a basis for “dealing with the failure of traditional problem-solving strategies and multilevel cooperation in decision making” (Armeni 2015 , p.884). Despite such positive features, our analysis also however points to variations across NAPs and a number of general weaknesses. In particular, NAPs need to institutionalise inclusion of constituencies at risk of marginalisation and discrimination; they need to rest on stronger data at the outset and gathered and published over time on a consistent if not universally prescribed basis, and they need to be scrutinised via stronger and more routinised processes of peer review.

Nevertheless, the weaknesses of NAPs identified here do not seem fatal or to signify a lack of traction of international business and human rights norms, even those of a soft law nature. Rather, highlighting the emergence of relatively sophisticated governance architectures in the context of NAPs practice, along with the limitations and preconditions that may attach to their effectiveness, our analysis draws attention to the potential for further development of NAPs processes in the future, which should be informed by further research in the areas we have indicated above.

A business and human rights NAP is an “evolving policy strategy developed by a State to protect against adverse human rights impacts by business enterprises in conformity with the [United Nations Guiding Principles on Busines and Human Rights]” (UNWG 2012 ).

Footnote removed to preserve anonymity.

By regulation we refer, with Black ( 2008 , p.139), to “sustained and focused attempts to change the behaviour of others in order to address a collective problem or attain an identified end or ends, usually through a combination of rules or norms and some means for their implementation and enforcement, which can be legal or non-legal.”.

As Slaughter observed in 1997: “The state…is disaggregating into its separate, functionally distinct parts. These parts—courts, regulatory agencies, executives, and even legislatures are networking with their counterparts abroad, creating a dense web of relations that constitutes a new, transgovernmental order” (1997, p.184).

Amongst US-based scholars, many accounts referred back to pragmatism and Dewey’s “democratic experimentalism” (Dewey 1927 ; Dorf and Sabel 1998 ) while in Europe, connections were explored to the work of Habermas and Luhmann, amongst others (e.g. Teubner 1983 ; Joerges and Neyer 2006).

For example, the EU and the Open Method of Coordination (Sabel and Zeitlin 2008 ; Zeitlin 2011); HIV/AIDS (Goldstein and Ansell 2018 ); Bangladesh Sustainability Compact (Kenner and Peake 2017 ); climate change technologies (Armeni 2015). Sabel and Simon ( 2011 ) focus on exepimentalism in “management-based regulation” schemes in the areas of environmental, health, mining and nuclear and safety (p.83) and social welfare (pp.89–93).

This distinguishes experimentalist governance from regime complexes and distributed networks which still tend to “fix precise, binding, and definitive rules to give effect to their policy preferences”: de Búrca et al., 2013p.743.

de Búrca ( 2017 ) examines three of the UN human rights treaty systems—the CEDAW, CRC, and CRPD.

Although all five of these features must be present in order for a governance system to be considered experimentalist, de Búrca ( 2010 , p.235) notes:“[T]he two most crucial features of an experimentalist-governance system, and those without which the system will fail in addressing the problem, are (1) the broadest possible degree of stakeholder participation compatible with effective decision-making, and (2) effective and informed monitoring”; see also de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.726, 2014).

The absence of hierarchy is defined here in a notably modest way: according to Goldstein and Ansell (p.230–231), “While the [experimentalist] model envisions a central unit, this unit is not a hegemon imposing its will.”.

See e.g. https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/plansactions/pages/plansofactionindex.aspx and OHCHR, Handbook on National Human Rights Plans of Action (2002), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/training10en.pdf

Such elements are referred to under UNCPRD Article 33, for example.

For example, Kenya and Honduras.

See: https://globalnaps.org/country/germany/

See: https://globalnaps.org/country/netherlands/ .

See: https://globalnaps.org/country/belgium/ .

Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand.

Countries that have developed NBAs: Chile, Czechia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Norway, Thailand. Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland (2 nd draft) and the Netherlands conducted NBAs following publication of their initial NAPs.

See: https://globalnaps.org/country/germany/ .

See: https://globalnaps.org/country/norway/ .

DEUTSCHER BUNDESTAG, ‘Gesetzesentwurf der Bundesregierung: Entwurf eines Gesetzes über die Unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten in Lieferketten ‘, Drucksache 19/28649, 19.04.2021, available at https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/286/1928649.pdf .

To recap, for readers’ convenience, these we identified earlier as (i) openness to participation of ‘stakeholders’ in a non-hierarchical process; (ii) articulation of a framework definition of a problem or goals which identifies open-ended objectives to be pursued; (iii) implementation by ‘lower-level’ actors with knowledge of local conditions and discretion to adapt framework norms to these different contexts” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.478; de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.739; Sabel and Simon 2011, p.55); (iv) continuous feedback and “mutual monitoring and peer review, serving an accountability function (de Búrca et al. 2013 , p.742); v) periodic revision and re-evaluation of goals and practices in light of peer review and shared purposes” (de Búrca et al. 2014 , p.478).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Colbyn MacPhail and Lars Heidtmann for research assistance. They also acknowledge data extracted from globalnaps.org and provided by Daniel Morris and Lukas Bogner of the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

Research for this article was partly funded by Danida, “Realising the SDGS: The role of responsible business”.

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O’Brien, C.M., Ferguson, J. & McVey, M. National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: an Experimentalist Governance Analysis. Hum Rights Rev 23 , 71–99 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-021-00637-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-021-00637-x

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Business and human rights

Upholding human rights is a responsibility of all actors of society, including business enterprises.

The growing complexity and globalisation of supply chains renders it increasingly important to promote the application of high human rights and sustainability standards in EU countries and around the world .

In line with this, the EU is global leader on Responsible Business Conduct   and a frontrunner in implementing the  UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights , the first globally agreed standard to prevent, address and remedy negative effects on human rights caused by business activities.

The EU has adopted a smart mix of voluntary and mandatory measures on business and human rights and responsible business conduct, including due diligence requirements for companies to identify and mitigate adverse human rights and environmental impacts associated with their activities and measures to guarantee access to remedy by victims of human rights violations. The Commission has adopted a proposal on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence  with the aim to introduce mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence across sectors.

The EU also promotes responsible business conduct through projects assisting governments and businesses in Latin America and Asia and EU Delegations are actively engaged in third countries to advance the global implementation of the UN Guiding Principles, for example by means of dedicated training and events.  In addition, to date 15 EU Member States have adopted National Action Plans on business and human rights to ensure the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles.

The EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020-2024 sets as a priority to reinforce the EU’s global leadership on the  Business and Human Rights , in particular by enhancing the coordination and coherence of EU actions in this area.

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The update of the UK’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights was published on the 12 May 2016 and reflects the broad range of activity and engagement which takes place across a large number of government departments. This update reaffirms the UK’s commitment to the implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGP) on Business and Human Rights, and acknowledges the duty of government but also sets out our expectation that UK businesses will act responsibly and in accordance with the UNGPs, wherever they operate.

See also the UK government’s May 2020 update on implementing the UN guiding principles .

Update of the UK’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights added.

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National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights

NAP Development Process

On the 31 July 2021, it was announced that the Uganda BHR NAP has been published .

Congs to all! Uganda’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights(NAPBHR) is signed. @joekibugu @RoyaAZH @nkgladys @ISERUganda @hwasserbauer @dkaaustria @H3000EastAfrica @RRightsAfrica pic.twitter.com/VQLHHwlp40 — Andrew Byaruhanga (@AndreByaruhanga) July 31, 2021

On 28 October 2021, the Government of Uganda led a launch event convening the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, the UN Resident Coordinator, the Deputy Head of the EU Mission in Uganda, heads of UN agencies for human rights in Uganda, the Chief of the Democratic Governance Facility, heads of several civil society organisations (CSOs), among others.

Uganda’s NAP Journey by the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER)

During the 2 nd Universal periodic Review (UPR2) in 2016, one of the recommendations to Uganda was to develop an action plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP) to implement the UN Guiding Principles (UNGP).

A Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) was conducted to determine the best way to address human rights violations by business activities; the development of a National Action Plan (NAP) on BHR was recommended as the most suitable way to proceed.

Following a discussion by the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Human Rights in a training organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UN Human Rights, the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social development was identified to coordinate the development of a NAP on BHR. Building on that recommendation, a Technical Working Committee was created to guide the NAP process. Membership of the committee comprised of individuals from government ministries, departments and agencies, CSOs and development partners.

The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) partnered with the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development in this process. In February 2019, an Inception meeting was held wherein the stakeholder identification was done together with a road map for the NAP process.

Eleven consultations were carried out across the country from March to October 2019. Additional consultations were conducted to obtain the business community (including business actors and trade unions)’s points of view on business and human rights. More specific meetings were held with women in the Kaabong and Moroto mining sectors. Special focus has been placed on the vulnerable persons in the community by giving them an opportunity to share their plight that arises from their interaction with business activities.

Lastly, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Co-operatives, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Equal Opportunities Commission, the Uganda Investment Authority, the Industrial Court, Parliament and the Private Sector foundation of Uganda were consulted.

The five-year NAP focuses on eight thematic areas that were identified during the consultations:

  • Land and Natural Resources;
  • Environment;
  • Labour rights;
  • Revenue transparency, Tax exemptions and corruption;
  • Social service delivery by private actors;
  • Consumer protection;
  • Access to remedy;
  • Women, vulnerable and marginalized groups.

The Ugandan NAP on BHR aims to provide a comprehensive framework to coordinate efforts across sectors to ensure respect for human rights in business operations, not just the workplace.

The following organisations were involved in the development and editing of the NAP:

Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, The Office of the President /Cabinet Secretariat, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Ministry of Trade, Industries and Cooperatives, Uganda People’s Defence Forces, Uganda Human Rights Commission, The Equal Opportunities Commission, Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), Uganda Consortium on Corporate Accountability (UCCA), The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Uganda), Resource Rights Africa, UN Global Compact National Chapter for Uganda and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

According to the NAP , the OHCHR, ISER, UCCA, FIDA-Uganda and Resource Rights Africa provided financial contributions to the Ministry to support the process.

Stakeholder Participation

CSOs have been involved in the NAP development process since 2016. CSOs acknowledged the efforts to include them as part of the process as the Ministry hosted the CSOs in their offices for them to easily and continuously provide input and help shape the NAP.

In the period of March-October 2019, the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development conducted wide stakeholder consultations. Over 600 participants from 99 districts in 11 sub-regions of Uganda were consulted. Dialogues with communities affected by business projects in the Kikube district, persons with disabilities, women and older persons were conducted. The Ministry also held focus group discussions with refugees in the West Nile and women’s representatives in the mining areas of Kaabong.

Child labour, casualisation of labour, poor remuneration, environmental pollution, land evictions, corruption, inadequate knowledge of human rights, sexual harassment, and the gender pay gap were identified, among others, as recurring issues and were discussed as part of the situational analysis during these stakeholder consultations.

On 12 August 2020, the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) Uganda held a high-level technical consultative meeting with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, providing a platform for stakeholders, including human rights NGOs, to discuss on trade and investment-related issues to integrate into the NAP.

Transparency

Efforts were made to disseminate the NAP. A talk show presenting the NAP and involving the Commissioner on Equity and Rights from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, a representative from the Uganda Consortium on Corporate Accountability and the Director of Monitoring and Inspections at the Uganda Human Rights Commission. This talk show aired twice on two different channels and is available online. Similarly, the NAP launch event was broadcast on national television and is available online.

The NAP provides a detailed budget for each strategic objective, breaks down the budget for the outputs determined, and indicates which actor will be responsible for using that budget. The NAP also sets specific output and outcome indicators to implement the NAP.

National Baseline Assessment (NBA)

• Published in August 2019 and available here . • Developed as an independent initiative to inform the inaugural BHR NAP, which was published in August 2021. • Conducted and funded by a civil society organisation: the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER). • Follows its own methodology based on desktop research. Contains recommendations.

Follow-up, monitoring, reporting and review

According to the NAP , the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development is to take the lead in the implementation of the NAP and ‘coordination of other actors in the social development and human rights sub-sector.’ The implementation stage is a ‘shared responsibility’ between the Government, private sector and other non-state actors. The other relevant public sector actors include the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Education and Sports, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and Uganda Human Rights Commission.

According to the speakers at the NAP launch event on 27 October 2021 , a national Secretariat for the implementation of the NAP has been set up, activities for implementation are underway.

To guarantee effective implementation, a Multi-Sectoral Technical Committee on Business and Human Rights composed of senior technical staff from key-line ministries and chief executive officers from government agencies was established under the Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.

It is further mentioned that all stakeholders are expected to monitor and evaluate the NAP. Periodic reviews to track implementations of interventions, results and change outcomes will be carried out. The following steps were provided by the NAP as the mechanism for review:

  • Monitoring and evaluation indicators will be established.
  • Joint monitoring visits will be carried out.
  • Review meetings will be conducted
  • Finally, the NAP will be evaluated after five years.

Appendix 1.1 of the NAP provides outcome and output indicators for each strategic objective to evaluate their implementation.

Stakeholders views and analysis on the NAP

Check this video out.???? The National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights unpacked in less than 3 minutes. @arkwesi @GRegaignon @ISERUganda @DGFUganda17 @KIOSFoundation @makpilac @Mglsd_UG @FIDA_Uganda @jbyomuhangyi For the full video visit https://t.co/UpEqk8MoNw pic.twitter.com/vf7zjsq5MT — UCCA_Ug (@UccaUg) July 9, 2020

Resource Rights Africa stated the NAP was ‘major move for the Government of Uganda on its mission to enhance inclusive growth and responsible investments in country.’

Additional Resources

Uganda country guide photo

National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights | TALK SHOW

National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights | PART II (Live broadcast of the launch event on NTV Uganda)

Explore NAP by Issue

CHAPTER THREE: SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

3.3 Labour Rights

The Government has created conducive working environment that allows for businesses to thrive. As such, businesses have become a major source of employment for Ugandans especially the youth and women.

According to UBOS (2018), overall unemployment was at 9.7% while youth unemployment stood at 40.7%. The unemployment situation has left many Ugandans especially the youth with no choice, but to accept any form of work offered to them. This has led to the growing trend of employment opportunities in business activities. However, there have also been reports of cases of human rights abuses associated with businesses operations.

Notwithstanding the progressive legal regime, there are a number of abuses experienced by especially vulnerable groups like women, people with disabilities and youth.

Uganda Human Rights Commission highlighted an emerging human rights concern of trafficking of persons abroad for work. It was noted that most of the victims were women and youth. The commission also highlights that there is no clear reporting and response mechanism for those caught up in violations abroad. It was further noted that despite registration and licensing of companies to regulate this business, many fraudulent companies were not fully complying with the established guidelines thus exposing Ugandans to violations of their rights. During stakeholder consultations the issues raised include; negative impacts of externalization of labour where youth especially girls were taken to work abroad without contracts. Subsequently such victims experience abuse of rights, physical and psychological violence and lack of protection while abroad.

3.8 Women, Vulnerable and Marginalized Groups

Children: Child labour remains a serious issue in Uganda. At least two million children aged 5-17 are engaged in child labour with 1.7 million below 14 years of age, and 507,000 involved in hazardous work (ILO/IPEC & UBOS, 2013). This includes children working in the agriculture sectors, domes c services, extractive industry (including children involved in artisanal and small-scale mining) and those that are victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The proportion of children in hazardous work was more than double in urban areas (61 percent) as compared to the rural (23 percent) (ILO/IPEC & UBOS, 2013). These issues were also raised during stakeholder consultations. Children were reported to be recruited to work on sugar, rice and tea plantations, as well as in the fishing sector. The vices were also reported to be common in mining (mineral and stone quarrying) and the construction sector where children are involved in manual labour. Poverty was cited as a main factor driving children to engage in labour. Stakeholders noted that there were reported cases of sexual assault and increase in child labour in the context of the construction of roads, for example during the construction of the Kabwoya Fort Portal Kamwenge road.

Youth: Concerns were raised during the consultation regarding reports of discrimination experienced by youth in terms of accessing employment opportunities. In many cases, they are offered only the least paying casual jobs and without formal contracts specifying the terms of employment. Youth, in the Eastern and Western regions, stated that there were instances of underpay and outright non-payment, in particular by construction companies. The consultation in Northern Uganda also revealed that there were abuse of the rights of the youth working on the large commercial farms established in the region. They claimed that most of these youth were ferried from far districts of West Nile who then end up stranded thus seeking help from the nearby districts whose resources are too meagre to offer repatriation to these victims.

CHAPTER FOUR: STRATEGIES AND INTERVENTIONS

OBJECTIVE 2: To promote human rights compliance and accountability by business actors

4.2.1. Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim their rights

II. Conduct community dialogue meetings with rights holders prioritizing women, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities and people in hard to reach areas.

OBJECTIVE 4: To promote social inclusion and rights of the vulnerable and marginalized individuals and groups in business operations.

  4.4.1 Empower communities to demand for protection and fulfilment of their rights and access to justice

II. Implement the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBP). 


Read more about Children’s rights

‘Uganda’s NAP does not explicitly address this issue’

Read more about Conflict-affected areas

Read more about Construction sector

CHAPTER FIVE: INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

5.10. UWA, UNRA, NEMA, AND NFA

iii. Ensure that businesses under take ESIA prior to commencement of businesses operations
and conduct annual audits.

5.13. Private Sector

ii. Ensure that the corporate policies and plans including practices are compliant with the action plan.

Read more about Corporate law & corporate governance

3.4 Revenue Transparency , Tax exemptions and corruption

Uganda has been consistently attracting the highest foreign direct investment (FDI) in East Africa by attracting between $250 – 300 million in FDI annually between 2010 and 2016 – largely due to its stable and consistent macro-economic policies including liberalization of business environment and tax incentives to investors in selected sectors like manufacturing, oil and gas and Energy (URA, 2019; a Guide on Tax Incentives/Exemptions Available to the Uganda Investors).

Stakeholders, particularly national business owners’ and private providers, noted that tax exemptions were not provided transparently and they were provided to large or foreign companies, making the State to lose needed revenue and causing unfair competition between those who receive and those who do not. The participants also noted that if tax exemptions/ tax incentives are to be granted, the business owners should demonstrate that the exemptions/ tax incentives are justified and their implementation will ensure deliberate, concrete and targeted steps to guarantee protection and fulfilment of human rights, particularly through employment creation and delivery of social services thus improving lives of the Ugandans. In addition, the exemptions should be monitored, their social benefits and the human rights compliance periodically assessed. The assessments should be informed by broad public participation, especially of individuals that are directly affected.

Revenue transparency particularly revenue in the extractives sector has become an increasing concern to the public. There has been a wider call for resources justice through arrangements such as Publish What You Pay (PWYP), the Natural Resources Charter, Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative among others. The NAP consultations enlisted several challenges that affect revenue transparency. There is an inflow of investors opera ng in the districts but without licenses from the district authorities. This was typically raised in Karamoja region where many business owners in the mining sector emerge with mining licenses purportedly from Kampala and do not contribute any taxes to the local government authorities. This has led to reduction in local revenue collection as well as affected social service delivery to the communities.

Corruption is one of the major challenges leading to violation of human rights in business operations in Uganda. Many business operators reported corruption in procurement, acquisition of licenses and tax collection.
Imprudent utilization of tax and other resources through corruption undermines positive outcomes of businesses in Uganda. This weakens the economic and social efforts of the government to provide services and even further discourages transparency in matters of business operations.

Read more about Corruption

Read more about Data protection & privacy

5.14 Development Partners

I. Provide technical support for the implementation of action plan.

II. Provide resources and logistics to enhance implementation of the action plan.

III. Monitor and evaluate the impact of the action plan.

Read more about Development finance institutions

Read more about Energy sector

3.2 Environment

The government recognises the right to a clean and healthy environment and this aspiration is contained in laws and mechanisms such as Article 39 of the 1995 Constitution, the National Environment Act, (amended) 2019 and other institutions like National Environmental Management Authority, National Forestry Authority and Uganda Wildlife Authority to conserve and protect the environment for sustainable development.

The country has registered a flourishing number of projects in the recent past and NEMA highlights five leading categories of projects as follows: Fuel Stations (22.8%), Information Communication Technology (22.0%), Infrastructure (21.1%), Industry (14.7%), and Mining (6.2%). Thus, these five categories of projects constitute 86.8% of the total projects approved by NEMA in the FY 2018/2019 (NEMA, Annual Report 2019). The report further states that the increasing trend of developments in the sectors highlighted creates demand for construction materials as well as fuel, which are associated with high negative impact on environment and communities.

Some of the notable negative environmental impacts associated with the said categories of projects include: increase in atmospheric pollution caused by emission of different kinds of noxious (harmful) gases, fumes, and particulate matter into the atmosphere; while mining projects create residual impacts which include; scarred landscape, degradation of the affected landscape including soil erosion and in some cases disruption of the local hydrology (which may affect the water catchment system), and un-restored mines and murram/gravel borrow-pits among others.

Over the years, Uganda’s tree cover has immensely declined i.e. from 24% in 1990 to 12.4% in 2015 (NFA, Feb 2018). Communities reported high cases of forests degradation to pave way for businesses especially large scale undertakings. For instance Ugandan government entered into an agreement with BIDCO, the largest manufacturer of vegetable oil in Uganda, and Malaysian palm oil giants Wilmar to set up a planta on and refinery in the Kalangala islands in Lake Victoria. However, business enterprises rarely meaningfully respond to these negative impacts.

During the field stakeholder consultations for the development of the NAPBHR, the communities raised concerns that certain businesses, particularly those in extractives (mining, quarrying), transportation, manufacturing sectors are contributing to such social and negative environmental impacts including destruction of cultural and historical sites. Gender issues manifest in such businesses, such as; men continue to receive the most benefits of the mining industry, women often bear the disproportionate share of social, economic, and environmental risks that sometimes arise from this sector. Women employed in mines work under unsafe conditions often characterized by meager pay, sexual harassment, poor sanitation, domestic violence and exposure to hazardous substances such as mercury among others. It has also been argued that health impacts are felt disproportionately by women as they tend to be primarily responsible for caring for the health of family members.

5.4 Business entities

v. Ensure environmental protection in their operations.

Read more about Environment & climate change

3.8 Women, Vulnerable and Marginalized Groups  

Human rights instruments set out obligations and commitments to ensure equality and non-discrimination. These are highlighted in various human rights instruments at international, regional and national levels including the following: SDG 5 gender equality and women empowerment , 8 on decent employment and 10 on reducing inequalities within and among countries, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Convention on Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), the Constitution of Uganda under Chapter Four on the Protection and Promotion of Fundamental and Other Human Rights and Freedoms, the National Equal Opportunities Policy (2006), the National Gender Policy (2007), the Persons with Disability Act (2020) and the National Policy on Disability (2006).

Despite the positive strides taken to provide legal protection for vulnerable groups, gaps persist and certain groups remain susceptible to suffer negative consequences of business operations. In particular, those that are already marginalized or excluded in society – as is often the case for women, minority groups, migrants, and persons with disabilities and persons living with HIV/AIDS.

Women: Women continue to face significant violation of human rights especially in employment in business operations. The National Social Protection Policy (2015) indicates that there are enormous risks, which include low pay, job insecurity, limited labour mobility, discrimination, sexual harassment, lack of maternity protection and poor working conditions. There is also a significant pay gap between men and women in Uganda. About 85 percent of the paid workers are employed in the informal sector without formal contracts and have no social security. Approximately 33.8 percent of the workers in the private sector earn less than Shs 50,000 per month. Agricultural wage workers, the majority of whom are women, receive the lowest wages. The findings from the consultations showed sexual harassment of female workers and coercion into sexual activity with employers to access employment or salary payments. These cases were largely under-reported due to fear of negative repercussions on the victims. If these challenges are not addressed, women will continue to bear the burden of violations and abuses of human rights in business operations and remain at the periphery of social protection and development.

Over the past few years, there has been strong initiatives to protect women’s property rights in Uganda. However, due to social constructions of gender and traditional underpinnings, challenges remain in implementation and enforcement of these measures. Ownership of land by women has been affected by increased demand for land for foreign direct and local investments. Considering the extractive industry, women often bear the disproportionate share of social, economic and environmental risks while men primarily capture the benefits of the industry. Women employed in mines work under unsafe conditions often characterized by meagre pay, sexual harassment, poor sanitation, domestic violence and exposure to hazardous substances such as mercury among others. Environmental degradation, often caused by business operations, is felt most keenly by women, who bear the greatest burden to mi gate food insecurity, water pollution and shortage and decreased health of families. Women in certain industries such as large-scale agriculture and extractives often lack access to appropriate protective equipment, which exposes them to dangers, and hazards which can affect their health and safety, including their sexual and reproductive health.

Older persons: The consultations revealed that older persons face the following challenges; limited access to employment opportunities, retention of jobs, as abuse and violence in workplaces, low pay, among others. These issues have led to increased vulnerability and poverty among older persons.

In view of the specific challenges faced by vulnerable and marginalized groups in connection with business activities, the National Ac on Plan calls for particular attention to ensure that such adverse impact is prevented and addressed, including by ensuring access to effective remedies.

4.2.2. Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim their rights

  • Develop inclusive information, communication and education materials.
  • Conduct community dialogue meetings with rights holders prioritizing women, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities and people in hard to reach areas.

4.2.3. Promoting compliance to human rights observance

vii. Enact and enforce gender-sensitive legislation to protect human rights defenders.

ix. Promote gender-sensitive and inclusive land use planning by investors.

OBJECTIVE 3: To promote meaningful and effective participation and respect for consent by relevant stakeholders in business operations.

4.3.1 Promoting FPIC for communities in all business operations

i. Review and enact laws guaranteeing FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent), particularly ensuring meaningful consultations with vulnerable groups, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous persons, ethnic minorities and persons living with HIV and AIDS.

ii. Develop and enforce guidelines and policies regarding land acquisition, compensation and resettlement of communities affected by business operations, prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable, such as women, persons with disabilities and persons living with HIV/AIDS.

4.4.1 Empower communities to demand for protection and fulfilment of their rights and access to justice

  • Educate communities, prioritizing vulnerable groups such as women, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities and older persons, on business and human rights including access to justice.
  • Implement the Children’s Rights and Business Principles (CRBP).
  • Advocate for gender equality through ensuring equal opportunity to both men and women in business operations and promotion of the gender equality seal programme.
  • Advocate for elimination of sexual harassment in business operations.
  • Strengthen social protection interventions for the vulnerable groups affected by business operations.

4.4.2 Engagement of business operators on human rights

iii. Ensure the establishment and strengthening of gender and equity-responsive internal grievance redress mechanisms in business operations.

OBJECTIVE 5: To enhance access to remedy to victims of business-related human rights abuses and violations in business operations.

4.5.1 Strengthen access to remedy mechanisms against business-related human rights abuses and violations

ii. Provision of government-supported legal aid services to workers, especially vulnerable groups including women, persons with disabilities, persons living with HIV and AIDS and minorities.

iv. Strengthening laws and policies providing for effective, inclusive and gender-responsive remedies on business-related matters.

5.3 Equal Opportunities Commission

  • Ensure implementation of the action plan and the enforcement of equal opportunities.
  • Investigate complaints related to victimization, marginalization, injustice, and discrimination
in conduct of businesses.
  • Create awareness and advocate for equal opportunities for all at all levels.
  • Influence and inform policies, plans, legislations and budgets of institutions in relation to the NAPBHR.
  • Under take research on issues of equal opportunities.
  • Enforce compliance with provisions of equal opportunities requirements.

iv. Ensure inclusion of the vulnerable groups in the business operations.

5.9 Local Governments

ii. Supervise business operations to ensure protection of human rights and social inclusion of the communities.

viii. Coordinate, monitor and supervise implementation of the policy and the equal opportunities Act at their respective levels.

5.10 UWA, UNRA, NEMA, AND NFA

i. Ensure equal and equitable sharing of benefits among communities in conservation areas.

5.11 The Parliament

iii. Monitor business operations in their constituents for protection of human rights and equal opportunities for the vulnerable and marginalized groups.

5.12 Private Sector

iii. Ensure affirmative action interventions for less privileged and marginalized in business operations.

5.16 The communities and households

The community and households will;

  • Strengthen social support networks and mechanisms to protect and promote the welfare of vulnerable groups.
  • Promote and respect the rights of the vulnerable groups in communities and households.
  • Participate actively in implementing interventions and also linking vulnerable groups to service providers.

5.17 The marginalized and other vulnerable groups

The marginalized and other vulnerable groups will;

  • Ensure full awareness and realization of their rights.
  • Participate in community dialogue meetings to identify factors which cause their marginalization and vulnerability.
  • Participate in identification of initiatives and planning and implementing such interventions aimed at improving their welfare.
  • Monitor the implementation of the action plan.

The strategic implementation framework in the 1.0 Appendices includes: 

  • Objective 2.0, Strategic Actions: Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim for their rights
  • Objective 3.0: Improvement in the business entities’ duty to ensure Free Prior and Informed Consent in investment and other business undertakings
  • Objective 4.0: To promote social inclusion and rights of the vulnerable and marginalized individuals and groups in business operations

Budgeted outputs in Annex I include:

  • Strengthening the physical planning committee in the district and municipality to do equity planning and budgeting (Objective 1.0)
  • Develop inclusive information, communication and education materials (Objective 2.0)
  • Popularizing existing labour laws (by translating them into local languages (Objective 2.0)
  • Advocate for gender equality through ensuring equal opportunity to both men and women in business operations and promotion of the gender equality seal. (Objective 4.0)
  • Advocate for elimination of sexual harassment in business operations (Objective 4.0)
  • Strengthen social protection interventions for the vulnerable groups affected by business operations. (Objective 4.0)

Read more about Equality & non-discrimination

Read more about Export credit

Over the years, Uganda’s tree cover has immensely declined i.e. from 24% in 1990 to 12.4% in 2015 (NFA, Feb 2018). Communities reported high cases of forests degradation to pave way for businesses especially large scale undertakings. For instance, Ugandan government entered into an agreement with BIDCO, the largest manufacturer of vegetable oil in Uganda, and Malaysian palm oil giants Wilmar to set up a planta on and refinery in the Kalangala islands in Lake Victoria. However, business enterprises rarely meaningfully respond to these negative impacts.

Revenue transparency particularly revenue in the extractives sector has become an increasing concern to the public. There has been a wider call for resources justice through arrangements such as Publish What You Pay (PWYP), the Natural Resources Charter, Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative among others. The NAP consultations enlisted several challenges that affect revenue transparency. There is an inflow of investors operating in the districts but without licenses from the district authorities. This was typically raised in Karamoja region where many business owners in the mining sector emerge with mining licenses purportedly from Kampala and do not contribute any taxes to the local government authorities. This has led to reduction in local revenue collection as well as affected social service delivery to the communities.

Read more about Extractives sector

Read more about Extraterritorial jurisdiction

3.6 Consumer Protection

Uganda has maintained a liberal economic policy since the late 1980s. This policy approach has seen Uganda divest most public enterprise and allow private sector players in a number of important sectors of the economy such as telecommunications, energy/electricity, transport and banking. There is evidence that this economic policy approach has driven economic development in the country, with greater multiplier and inter-sectoral effects. However, the full potential of the economic policy reforms has been hampered by some uncompetitive practices by some of the private sector players.

The current policy, legal and regulatory framework related to promotion of fair competition and consumer protection is fragmented. A number of sub-sectors have policies and laws that govern the promotion of competition and consumer protection. These include; Financial institutions i.e. deposit taking, money lenders and insurance companies …

5.5 Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

  • Ensure allocation of funds to sectors for implementation of the action plan in line with the public finance management Act.
  • Promote the integration of the action plan in all sector budgets and plans.
  • Enact appropriate tax regimes.

Read more about Finance & banking sector

The Ugandan NAP does not make a direct reference to the Fisheries and Aquaculture sectors.

Read more about Fisheries and aquaculture sectors

Uganda Human Rights Commission highlighted an emerging human rights concern of trafficking of persons abroad for work. It was noted that most of the victims were women and youth. The commission also highlights that there is no clear reporting and response mechanism for those caught up in violations abroad. It was further noted that despite registration and licensing of companies to regulate this business, many fraudulent companies were not fully complying with the established guidelines thus exposing Ugandans to violations of their rights. During stakeholder consultations the issues raised include; negative impacts of externalization of labour where youth especially girls were taken to work abroad without contracts. Subsequently such victims experience abuses of rights, physical and psychological violence and lack of protection while abroad.

Read more about Forced labour & modern slavery

Read more about Freedom of association

The Ugandan NAP does not make a direct reference to the Garment sector.

Read more about Garment, Textile and Footwear Sector

(…) Gender issues manifest in such businesses, such as; men continue to receive the most benefits of the mining industry, women often bear the disproportionate share of social, economic, and environmental risks that sometimes arise from this sector. Women employed in mines work under unsafe conditions often characterized by meager pay, sexual harassment, poor sanitation, domes c violence and exposure to hazardous substances such as mercury among others. It has also been argued that health impacts are felt disproportionately by women as they tend to be primarily responsible for caring for the health of family members.

Notwithstanding the progressive legal regime, there are a number of abuses experienced by especially vulnerable groups like women, people with disabilities and youth. The field findings revealed glaring gaps in labour administration in the country particularly in the business sector. No ng that whereas each district is mandated to have a labour officer, due to budgetary limitations and varying priorities at the district level, many districts do not have substantive labour officers in place. Those in place raised a concern of difficulty in executing their jobs due to under-funding to the labour functions, lack of transport to carry out routine and effective supervision and corruption, which hinders compliance to their rulings. Some of the labour officers also highlighted challenges of information asymmetry between the centre (MGLSD) and the local governments.

The consultations also revealed that women comprise of the majority of labour force in the Planta on Agriculture and informal Sectors—which still face challenges around regulatory and protective measures. Casualization of labour is also ripe within these sectors. It was further revealed that cases of occupational and safety health hazards of women in manufacturing and production industries have increased. It was also shared that workers are employed without formal contracts hence no job security as well as limited access to remedy for human rights abuses by business operations including delays or lack of compensations in case of workplace accidents. In some companies, management was not in support of their workers joining trade unions since they consider it that it affects the productivity of workers. It was also reported that employees are often exploited by companies to work for long hours and are often poorly remunerated. This was reported to be common in the planta on and construction companies. It was further established that many employers in the business sector do not comply with the laws guaranteeing labour rights.

5.9.1 Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim their rights

ii. Conduct community dialogue meetings with rights holders prioritizing women, youth, older

  • Review and enact laws guaranteeing FPIC, particularly ensuring meaningful consultations with vulnerable groups, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous persons, ethnic minorities and persons living with HIV and AIDS.
  • Develop and enforce guidelines and policies regarding land acquisition, compensation and resettlement of communities affected by business operations, prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable, such as women, persons with disabilities and persons living with HIV/AIDS.

4.4.1 Empower communities to demand for protection and fulfilment of their rights and access to justice.

iii. Advocate for gender equality through ensuring equal opportunity to both men and women in business operations and promotion of the gender equality seal programme.

iv. Advocate for elimination of sexual harassment in business operations.

Require human rights due diligence by businesses through comprehensive human rights impact assessments involving meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups, including consideration of gendered impacts of operations and covering value and supply chains.

v. Ensure the establishment and strengthening of gender and equity-responsive internal grievance redress mechanisms in business operations.

OBJECTIVE 5: To enhance access to remedy to victims of business-related human rights abuses and violations in business operations

5.1 Ministry Of Gender, Labour and Social Development

  • Provide leadership in implementation of the action plan.
  • Create awareness and appreciation for the National Action Plan.
  • Ensure the development and use of guidelines on human rights in business operations.
  • Build and strengthen the capacity of duty bearers in human rights based programming.
  • Monitor and evaluate social impact assessments in infrastructural developments.
  • Create and establish effective mechanisms and networks to enhance coordination of implementation of the NAP.
  • Undertake assessments and audits for compliance to human rights by business operations including state and non-state entities.
  • Mobilize resources for implementation of the action plan.
  • Monitor and evaluate the contribution of the national action plan to development and reduction of human rights abuses and violations by business operations.
  • Monitor and evaluate the implementation of this action plan.

Read more about Gender & women’s rights

CHAPTER FOUR: STRATEGIES AND INTERVENTIONS STRATEGIES

4.2.3 Capacity building for business operators on human rights observance

  • Strengthen the technical capacity of businesses on human rights. 

  • Build capacity of businesses and their umbrella-bodies to conduct and undertake human rights-compliance self-assessments.
  • Strengthen the capacity of the human resource function in business operations in observing workers’ rights.
  • Strengthen the capacity of Occupational Safety and Health managers and committees in businesses on human rights compliance.
  • Develop IEC (“information, education, and communication”) materials and disseminate information on human rights for business operators.
  • Creation of fora and platforms for human rights discussions among business operators and other actors.

ii. Mobilize and build capacity of selected business operators as human rights in business change agents.

4.4.3 Capacity building to State and Non-State actors on human rights based approach to programming at all levels

iii. Build capacity of business leaders and owners on the human rights based approach in business operations.

iv. Build capacity of human rights defenders to monitor, document and report on human rights abuses and violations in business operations.

iii. Ensure the development and use of guidelines on human rights in business operations.

5.7 Uganda Investment Authority

iii. Disseminate human guidelines on business and human rights to investors.

iv. Disseminate guidelines and other related information, communication and education materials on business and human rights.

  • Capacity building for business operators on human rights observance. (Strategic Actions under Objective 2.0)
  • Capacity building for business operators on human rights observance. (Strategic Actions under Objective 3.0)
  • Capacity building to State and Non-State actors on human rights based approach to programming at all levels (Strategic Actions under Objective 4.0)
  • Strengthen the technical capacity of business operations on human rights (Objective 2.0)
  • Strengthening implementation of social safety and health guidelines (Objective 2.0)
  • Develop an e-portal on business and human rights (Objective 3.0)
  • Develop and roll out multi-media digital access to information/ channels on business and human rights (Objective 3.0)
  • Build capacity of business leaders and owners on the human rights based approach in business operations. (Objective 4.0)

Read more about Guidance to business

Persons living with HIV/AIDS: The consultations established that there was discrimination on the basis of HIV status in business operations. Reports were shared about mandatory testing of prospective and current employees, resulting in dismissal of those found to be HIV-positive.

Read more about Health and social care

4.2.2 Promoting compliance to human rights observance

  4.5.2 Improve access to legal services to communities affected by business-related human rights violations and abuses

  • Build capacity of lawyers, human rights defenders, judicial officers, communities and other stakeholders on access to remedy for human rights abuses and violations related to business operations.
  • Build capacity of lawyers, human rights defenders and judicial officers on access to remedy for business and human rights. (Objective 5.0)

Read more about Human rights defenders & whistle-blowers

  • Promote responsible sourcing practices and certification.
  • Mobilize and build capacity of selected business operators as human rights in business change agents.
  • Ensure the establishment and strengthening of gender and equity-responsive internal grievance redress mechanisms in business operations.
  • Ensure business actors adopt and implement human rights policies.
  • Encourage business operators to register as members of the UN Global Compact.

Read more about Human rights due diligence

CHAPTER FOUR: STRATEGIES AND INTERVENTIONS STRATEGIES  

  • Strengthen the technical capacity of businesses on human rights.

v. Monitor and evaluate social impact assessments in infrastructural developments.

vii. Undertake assessments and audits for compliance to human rights by business operations including state and non-state entities.

5.10 WA, UNRA, NEMA, AND NFA

  • Advocate for carrying out human rights impact assessments before and throughout business processes (Objective 3.0)

Read more about Human rights impact assessments

The current policy, legal and regulatory framework related to promo on of fair competition and consumer protection is fragmented. A number of sub-sectors have policies and laws that govern the promo on of competition and consumer protection. These include; … telecommunications; electricity generation and distribution; petroleum extraction, development and distribution; Information and Communications Technology.

It is important to note that a Consumer protection and Competition Act was submitted to parliament in 2015, however, it has not yet been passed.
In a number of major sub-sectors of the economy, it is evident that there is need for improved consumer protection. The areas include;

  • The Information and technology sub-sector; aggrieved consumers have to follow a court procedure which is a lengthy process in addressing consumer complaints. Moreover, the laws do not provide for a clear consumer rights and awareness mechanism.

Read more about ICT & electronics sector

  • Review and enact laws guaranteeing FPIC ( Free, Prior and Informed Consent ), particularly ensuring meaningful consultations with vulnerable groups, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous persons, ethnic minorities and persons living with HIV and AIDS.

ii. Ensure free prior and informed consent in acquisition of land and other properties for business operations.

  • Objective 3.0 (Appendices) Improvement in the business entities’ duty to ensure Free Prior and Informed Consent in investment and other business undertakings
  • Review and enact laws guaranteeing FPIC (Objective 3.0)
  • Developing guidelines and policies regarding land acquisition, compensation and resettlement of the affected communities (Objective 3.0)
  • Strengthening effective and meaningful community participation in business operations (Objective 3.0)

Read more about Indigenous peoples

Read more about Investment treaties & investor-state dispute settlements

3.7 Access to Remedy

Article 50 of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda guarantees judicial remedy for human rights violations and in particular stipulates that, any person who claims that his or her fundamental or other right or freedom guaranteed under the Constitution have been infringed or threatened, is entitled to apply to a competent court for redress which may include compensation. The judicial avenues for offering remedy to complaints of business-related human rights violations include the Civil Division of the High Court, the Environmental Tribunal, and the Industrial Court for employment and labour relations, among others. In the event of dissatisfaction, there are provisions for appeal to the Court of Appeal and further to the Supreme Court.

OBJECTIVE 1: To strengthen institutional capacity, operations and coordination efforts of state and non-state actors for the protection and promotion of human rights in businesses.

4.1.1 Capacity building for state and non-state actors on business and human rights

  • Strengthen the technical capacity of judicial and non-judicial agencies on business and human-rights related issues.

III. Strengthening the capacity of judicial and quasi-judicial institutions to provide remedy to business-related human rights abuses and violations.

4.5.2 Improve access to legal services to communities affected by business-related human rights violations and abuses

  • Provide free legal aid services to communities affected by business-related human rights abuses and violations.
  • Strengthen linkages and referrals for human rights violations and abuses.
  • Promote alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
  • Promote the use of regional and international remedy mechanisms for violations and abuses related to business.

5.2 Uganda Human Rights Commission

x. Receive, investigate and adjudicate cases of human rights violations in business operations.

5.5 Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs

  • Coordinate the formulation and review of legislation pertaining to business and human rights.
  • Promote access to justice for victims of human rights violations in business operations.
  • Innovate solutions to quicken conclusion of court cases.
  • Strategic Action, Objective 4.0: Empower communities to demand for protection and fulfilment of their rights and access to justice.
  • Objective 5.0 – To enhance access to remedy to victims of business-related human rights abuses and violations in business operations.
  • Strengthen the technical capacity of
judicial and non-judicial
agencies on business and human-rights related issues. (Objective 1.0)
  • Review and strengthen the capacity and function the probation and labour department to handle labour-related grievances (Objective 1.0)
  • Establishing and/ or strengthening laws, policies and grievance redress mechanisms to ensure accountability by businesses (Objective 2.0)
  • Awareness raising on available remedy mechanisms for business-related human rights abuses and violations. (Objective 5.0)
  • Strengthen laws and policies providing for effective remedies on business-related matters (Objective 5.0)
  • Provide free legal services to communities affected by business-related human rights abuses and violations. (Objetive 5.0)

Read more about Judicial remedy

CHAPTER THREE : SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

3.1 Land and Natural Resources

Uganda’s natural resource base is one of the richest and most diverse in Africa, resulting in the country’s economy relying heavily on these resources for provision of goods and services. The NRM manifesto considers land, which includes other natural resources like minerals, water and forests, as a key factor of production, particularly for Ugandans most of whom are still in agrarian economy. As part of efforts to ensure effective management of Uganda’s environment and natural resources, several policies and institutions have been put in place including; The Constitution, National Land Policy 2013, the National Land use policy 2007 and The Land Act (amended) 2010.

Despite the numerous achievements in land and natural resources management and administration, there still exists some challenges relating to protection of land rights in business operations. There is high incidences of small-scale and mass forced evictions orchestrated by businesses in both rural and urban areas. Illegal eviction is the consequence of lack of security of tenure and it amounts to a human rights viola on if conducted forcefully in disregard to set human rights standards.

High demand for land for large scale investments has resulted into increasing land evictions. For instance in March 2018, two private companies in Kiryandongo and Kitwanga sub counties rendered more than 5,000 families homeless after forceful eviction. Relatedly evictions by Hoima Sugar Works which resulted to displacement of many families in Kijayo Village, Kikube district relating and the increasing urban land illegal evictions which have resulted into destruction of several buildings, leaving families homeless and dependent on government support.

It was also established that those acquiring land for investments rarely undertake Social Impact Assessment (SIA) to determine the implications of land acquisition on the affected community and people. Undertaking a SIA minimizes the risks involved and prevents undue displacement, and ensures adequate rehabilitation, compensation and resettlement. It also guides the land acquiring agency to plan in a formal manner, thus saving costs, therefore reducing the risks involved in business activities.

During consultations, it was established that there is inadequate community engagement in land acquisition processes. This has resulted into increased cases of land conflicts including destruction of the established investments and violations of human rights.

ii. Ensure equal and equitable sharing of benefits among communities in conservation areas.

iii. Ensure equity in settlement and resettlement of the displaced communities particularly the vulnerable groups.

iv. Ensure that businesses under take ESIA prior to commencement of businesses operations
and conduct annual audits.

The strategic implementation framwork in the 1.0 Appendices includes: 

Read more about Land

Read more about Migrant workers

2.2.1 Promoting compliance to human rights observance

ii. Supporting the UHRC (Uganda Human Rights Commission), EOC (Equal Opportunities Commission), and other relevant government institutions in their engagements with businesses.

CHAPTER 5: INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

5.3 Uganda Human Rights Commission

  • Promoting and disseminating the national action plan.
  • Monitor human rights compliance by government and companies in business operations.
  • Advise government and businesses on matters of human rights observance.
  • Conduct human rights education and awareness to business operators and communities.
  • Receive, investigate and adjudicate cases of human rights violations in business operations.
  • Enforce compensations for the awards of human rights violations.
  • Conduct research and documentation on business and human rights.
  • Review and inform laws and policies on matters of business and human rights.
  • Enforce human rights compliance in line with international human rights standards.

Read more about National Human Rights Institutions/ Ombudspersons

Read more about Non-financial reporting

In addition to the judicial mechanisms, victims can also seek quasi-judicial mechanisms for remedy. There are other tribunals such as Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Tribunal and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) Tribunal.

The aforementioned legal protection notwithstanding, stakeholder consultations revealed that the complex nature of court procedures, along with social, economic and political factors, present barriers in accessing remedy. Some of the challenges in accessing effective remedies include: access to court, inadequate number of judicial officers, high cost of litigation, long distance to court, delayed payment of awards, limited enforcement of judicial decisions and inadequate internal grievance redress mechanisms. For instance, a case filed in 2013 regarding persons who were internally displaced due to the establishment of a sugar factory was not concluded by June 2019. The delay in dispensing justice puts the affected persons at a risk of loss of livelihoods, food insecurity, and lack of access to basic services like health care, safe and clean water and education for the children among others.

It is therefore important to improve the process of acquiring land and other assets for business operations, improve the method of relocating communities and provide access to remedy for the victims of violations and abuses of human rights.

4.1.2 Capacity building for state and non-state actors on business and human rights

i. Strengthen the technical capacity of judicial and non-judicial agencies on business and human-rights related issues.

  • Awareness raising on workers’ rights and available remedy mechanisms for business-related human rights abuses and violations.
  • Provision of government-supported legal aid services to workers, especially vulnerable groups including women, persons with disabilities, persons living with HIV and AIDS and minorities.
  • Strengthening the capacity of judicial and quasi-judicial institutions to provide remedy to business-related human rights abuses and violations.
  • Strengthening laws and policies providing for effective, inclusive and gender-responsive remedies on business-related matters.
  • Increasing human and financial resources to support the monitoring and inspection of business operations.
  • Strengthening avenues available for remedy to business-related human rights violations and abuses.
  • Enhancing inter-sector and inter-agency coordination in handling complaints of victims of business-related human rights abuses and violations.
  • Strengthening linkages and referrals for human rights violations and abuses in business operations.

5.6 Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs

iv. Coordinate the formulation and review of legislation pertaining to business and human rights.

v. Promote access to justice for victims of human rights violations in business operations.

vi. Innovate solutions to quicken conclusion of court cases.

ii. Strengthen social support networks and mechanisms to protect and promote the welfare of vulnerable groups.

The strategic implementation framework
 in the 1.0 Appendices includes: 

Read more about Non-judicial grievance mechanisms

Uganda is not a member country of the OECD. The Ugandan NAP makes no reference to OECD National Contact Points (NCPs).

Read more about OECD National Contact Points

Notwithstanding the progressive legal regime, there are a number of abuses experienced by especially vulnerable groups like women, people with disabilities and youth. The field findings revealed glaring gaps in labour administration in the country particularly in the business sector. Noting that whereas each district is mandated to have a labour officer, due to budgetary limitations and varying priorities at the district level, many districts do not have substantive labour officers in place. Those in place raised a concern of difficulty in executing their jobs due to under-funding to the labour functions, lack of transport to carry out routine and effective supervision and corruption, which hinders compliance to their rulings. Some of the labour officers also highlighted challenges of information asymmetry between the centre (MGLSD) and the local governments.

Persons with Disabilities: It emerged that persons with disabilities were subjected to unfair treatment and often excluded from socio-economic development processes and employment opportunities due to stigma and discrimination. It was reported that physical barriers make it difficult for persons with disabilities to access government facilities, including labour offices, and certain potential work places. Persons with Disability are often excluded from accessing information and have limited access to education, which further limits their livelihood opportunities, which increases their vulnerability to exploitation. Disability affect men and women differently and impact women more due to social and cultural norms. According to the 2006 National Policy on Disability in Uganda, discriminatory cultural practices on property inheritance and property ownership affect the livelihoods of women with disabilities more adversely than men with disabilities.

4.2.1 Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim their rights

ii. Conduct community dialogue meetings with rights holders prioritizing women, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities and people in hard to reach areas.

II. Provision of government-supported legal aid services to workers, especially vulnerable groups including women, persons with disabilities, persons living with HIV and AIDS and minorities.

Read more about Persons with disabilities

4.1.1 Strengthen coordination between the different government agencies working on business and human rights

  • Strengthening existing government structures to enhance business and human rights.
  • Sensitize and disseminate information to duty bearers.
  • Establish a multi-sectoral committee on business and human rights.
  • Strengthen existing district coordination committees and human rights desks and units at district and lower local government level.

vi. Enhancing inter-sector and inter-agency coordination in handling complaints of victims of business-related human rights abuses and violations.

  CHAPTER FIVE: INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

vi. Create and establish effective mechanisms and networks to enhance coordination of implementation of the NAP.

5.7 Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs

5.8 Local Governments

Read more about Policy coherence

3.5 Social Service delivery by private actors

In Africa, there is a growing rate of service provision by the private actors and this is attributed to the recognition that some bilateral donors and international institutions increasingly put pressure on African Countries to privatize or facilitate access to private actors in service delivery particularly health and education sectors, without consideration for State Parties’ obligations under the African Charter (ACHPR / Res. 420 (LXIV) 2019).

NRM Manifesto 2021-2026 is committed to delivering social services like education and health, noting that “an educated and healthy population is key in improving people’s standards of living.” NDP III states that the government will work with the private sector on Human Capital Development to ensure that the resource-led sustainable industrialization process is both sustainable and beneficial to its citizens. In Uganda, the private sector is gradually playing a prominent role in service delivery, in areas which were the traditional domain of the State, through purely private engagements as well as Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The rapid increase of the private sector development has not been matched by adequate regulation on protection and fulfilment of human rights within the context of businesses.

Although the government has passed the PPP Act (2010), PPP Guidelines and has a National Strategy for Private Sector Development 2017/18-2021/22 in place; there is no legal requirement to enforce respect for and compliance with human rights standards.

The rising cost of social services provided by private actors has resulted in unaffordability of these services. From the stakeholder consultations, it emerged that the private social service providers were viola ng rights of the public through charging exorbitant fees for their services, demanding for cash pay prior to service delivery particularly in health sector, displaying discrimination in employment opportunities, under payment of their staff among others.

The Africa Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (Resolution 420) recognising these challenges; has implored State Parties to enact legislative and policy frameworks regulating private actors in social service delivery and ensure that their involvement is in conformity with regional and international human rights standards.

Read more about Privatisation

Read more about Public procurement

Read more about Security sector

Read more about Small & medium-sized enterprises

The rising cost of social services provided by private actors has resulted in unaffordability of these services. From the stakeholder consultations, it emerged that the private social service providers were violating rights of the public through charging exorbitant fees for their services, demanding for cash pay prior to service delivery particularly in health sector, displaying discrimination in employment opportunities, under payment of their staff among others.

5.15 Civil Society Organizations

The civil society organizations are critical stakeholders in implementing NAP on business and human rights. They will be responsible for;-

  • Building effective partnerships and networks with government and other actors to implement the action plan.

Read more about State Owned Enterprises/ Public Private Partnerships

OBJECTIVE 4: To promote social inclusion and rights of the vulnerable and marginalized individuals and groups in business operations.  

  • Number of businesses complying with human rights and accountability standards.
  • Number of businesses that incorporated human rights and accountability procedures in their management processes.
  • Number of businesses that incorporated human rights and accountability procedures in their procurement processes.

Read more about Supply chains

Revenue transparency particularly revenue in the extractives sector has become an increasing concern to the public. There has been a wider call for resources justice through arrangements such as Publish What You Pay (PWYP), the Natural Resources Charter, Extractives Industries transparency Initiative among others. The NAP consultations enlisted several challenges that affect revenue transparency. There is an inflow of investors operating in the districts but without licenses from the district authorities. This was typically raised in Karamoja region where many business owners in the mining sector emerge with mining licenses purportedly from Kampala and do not contribute any taxes to the local government authorities. This has led to reduction in local revenue collection as well as affected social service delivery to the communities.

viii. Mobilize resources for implementation of the action plan.

vii. Pay taxes to the government.

ii. Enact appropriate tax regimes.

x. Mobilize resources to implement the action plan.

Read more about Taxation

Read more about The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

6. The Tourism Act 2008 does not explicitly provide for the rights and obligations of consumers. It does not even have direct provisions on mechanisms for handling consumer complaints.


Read more about Tourism sector

5.8 Ministry of Trade, Industrial and Cooperatives

  • Attract investors with credible human rights records.
  • Ensure adherence to human rights standards by investors.
  • Incorporate human rights requirements in their investment promotion strategies.

Read more about Trade

The government recognizes the rights and contributions of workers to national development as such several legal and policy frameworks are in place to guarantee the right to work. Article 40 of the 1995 Constitution provides for the protection of workers’ rights, which includes the recognition of just and favourable conditions of work. The key legislation on working conditions in Uganda include the Employment Act (2006), Workers Compensation Act (2000) and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (2006), which regulate employment conditions including occupational safety and health standards, wages, working hours, leave and termination of employment.

4.1.3 Capacity building for state and non-state actors on business and human rights

iv. Strengthen the function of occupational health inspectors to monitor OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) Standards.

4.2.2 Capacity building for business operators on human rights observance

iii. Strengthen the capacity of the human resource function in business operations in observing workers’ rights.

iv. Strengthen the capacity of Occupational Safety and Health managers and committees in businesses on human rights compliance.

4.2.3 Empower communities especially vulnerable persons to claim their rights

iii. Popularize existing labour laws and labour standards relating to Occupational Safety and Health to make them known widely.

iv. Ensure helplines are available for reporting unsafe working conditions and other labour complaints.

  • Promote human rights education for their employees.

5.13 Private Sector

  • Promote and disseminate the action plan to employers and employees.

vii. Sensitize employees on human rights.

  • Objective 1.0 – Review and strengthen the capacity and function the probation and labour department to handle labour-related grievances
  • Objective 5.0 – Sensitize workers on their rights

Read more about Workers’ rights

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An Explosive Hearing in Trump’s Georgia Election Case

Fani t. willis, the district attorney, defended her personal conduct as defense lawyers sought to disqualify her from the prosecution..

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Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Richard Fausset

Produced by Rob Szypko ,  Sydney Harper and Alex Stern

With Rachelle Bonja

Edited by Devon Taylor

Original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell

Engineered by Chris Wood

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In tense proceedings in Georgia, a judge will decide whether Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and her office should be disqualified from their prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump.

Richard Fausset, a national reporter for The Times, talks through the dramatic opening day of testimony, in which a trip to Belize, a tattoo parlor and Grey Goose vodka all featured.

On today’s episode

business and human rights action plan

Richard Fausset , a national reporter for The New York Times.

Fani Willis is pictured from the side sitting behind a witness stand. She wears a pink dress.

Background reading

With everything on the line, Ms. Willis delivered raw testimony .

What happens if Fani Willis is disqualified from the Trump case?

Read takeaways from the hearing .

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We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Richard Fausset , based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset

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    The U.S. government started to work towards the National Action Plan (NAP) in September 2014, following President Obama's announcement that the United States "will develop a National Action Plan to promote and incentivize responsible business conduct . . . consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidel...

  6. U.S. Department of Commerce Releases 2023 Update to Equity Action Plan

    Today the U.S. Department of Commerce released the 2023 update to its Equity Action Plan, in coordination with the Biden-Harris Administration's whole-of-government equity agenda.This Equity Action Plan is part of the Department's efforts to implement the President's Executive Order on "Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal ...

  7. Justice Department Releases Update to Equity Action Plan

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    National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance ...

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    The UN Working Group on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (UN Working Group), mandated by the Human Rights Council to promote the effective and comprehensive implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), noted in its 2016 Guidance on business and human rights NAPs that ...

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    Summary This guidance of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights provides recommendations on the development, implementation and update of the National Action Plans (NAPs) on Business and Human Rights. The document is designed to serve as a reference guide for all stakeholders involved in NAP processes. It is based on the recognition that there is no 'one size fits all' approach ...

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    National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (2020-2025) (Provisional Translation) Table of Contents Chapter 1. Towards the Formulation of the National Action Plan NAP Background and Working Process P.2 1. Introduction: Increasing International Attention to Business and Human Rights and the Need for NAPs P. 2 2.

  27. An Explosive Hearing in Trump's Georgia Election Case

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    Principles on Business and Human Rights 2016 - 2020. IMPRINT This Action Plan was adopted by the Federal Cabinet on 16 December 2016. It can be

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    human rights by the business community and to prevent companies from abusing human rights either directly or in their supply chains. The govern-ment expects companies operating abroad, in particular in countries where legislation or enforcement falls short, to pursue the same standards for CSR and human rights as they would in the Netherlands.