2020-11-11
Swedwatch urges investors to support defenders as pandemic adds to dangers
Civic spacePolicy paper
Human rights and environmental defenders play a key role in contributing to upholding democracy and sustainable development. Investors should prioritise support to them, says a new Swedwatch policy briefing which underlines the added impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on their safety.
Defending human rights and the environment can be a deadly activity in many parts of the world. The growing number of attacks, as well as a record number of killings in 2019, has highlighted the risks involved in exposing negative effects from corporate activities. Mining, agribusiness and renewables are the sectors where most attacks have occurred in recent years.
When defenders are attacked and silenced, opportunities to hold companies and other actors accountable are reduced along with the ability of investors to identify, prevent and address risks of potentially severe human rights and environmental impacts of their investments.
The Swedwatch briefing The role of investors in supporting human rights and environmental defenders in the Covid-19 era examines how an already alarming situation has been worsened by the pandemic. It argues that identification and assessment of risks related to defenders, as well as appropriate action to support their ability to work without fear of retaliation, should be a priority for all investors committed to respecting and advancing human and environmental rights.
“The most progressive investors agree with United Nations calls to support defenders in the interest of all sections of society,” said Swedwatch researcher and author of the briefing Davide Maneschi. “Our experience is that far from all investors carry out effective human rights and environmental due diligence, and when they do defenders are almost never in focus. This needs to change.”
The briefing also argues that from a business perspective, attacks against defenders that are linked to investors’ assets can damage reputations and have negative financial consequences.
The briefing coincides with a global summit of public development banks aimed at shaping a common understanding of how these major investors can help “build back better” after the pandemic. As previously reported by Swedwatch, the role of civil society, human rights and community-led development is regrettably missing at this forum.
Defenders can be activists, journalists, whistleblowers or community organizers. They play a key role in holding companies and states accountable for business-related human rights abuses and environmental degradation – particularly where human rights and environmental protection are not effectively enforced by states.
As governments take measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 – including restrictions on civic freedoms such as freedom of movement and of assembly – risks to defenders have increased. Financial actors, including institutional investors, development finance institutions and other investors must take action to address the escalation of violence and intimidation, in line with international human rights frameworks.
- Focus Areas: Civic space
- Industry: Finance and investment
- Publication: Policy paper
Latest publications
Article
Civic space
Supply chains
5 September, 2022
Guidelines on gender due diligence not followed in practice
Despite expectations on businesses to conduct due diligence with a ‘gender lens’, gender-sensitive and gender-responsive policies and plans are often missing or lacking, causing severe impacts on women in a wide range of sectors. This was concluded in an online workshop with Latin-American civil society organisations, led by OECD Watch and co-hosted by Swedwatch.
While both men and women may be impacted by corporate activities, women experience these impacts differently and often more severely. For example, women are more likely to experience gender-based violence and discrimination, and to face stigmatization when challenging traditional gender norms. Moreover, female human rights defenders are often at heightened risk of attacks.
To increase the understanding of, and exchange experiences on business-related gender impacts among civil society organisations in Latin America, Swedwatch co-organized a workshop led by OECD Watch in the issue. The workshop assessed case studies of irresponsible business conduct and measured them against recommendations in the OECD Due Diligence Guidance and related gender documents (see fact box).
“Companies are expected to proactively identify, prevent and mitigate risks specific to women, and develop gender sensitive and gender-responsive policies and plans. However, as was illustrated in the case-studies, businesses, in various sectors often fail to properly conduct gender due diligence, which causes severe impacts on women”, said Malena Wåhlin at Swedwatch.
Gender sensitivity lacking
One of the cases discussed in a workshop was that of a wind-farm project in Mexico, where an intersectional gender perspective in community consultations was lacking; only five percent of the participants were women, and very few could participate in the consultations due to fear of attacks. The companies in question made no effort to organise consultation sessions at times and places suitable and accessible to women, nor to provide information in appropriate spaces to encourage the participation of women and girls in the community.
In a Peruvian case, negative impacts facing female workers in the garment industry were also highlighted, including precarious health and safety conditions for women, temporary hiring regimes, limited unionisation and fears of getting fired when demanding respect for their labour rights. Many factories in which these women work provide garments to international companies from OECD countries.
“It is important that civil society – with its crucial role to hold businesses and states to account for business-related impacts – knows what to expect by companies in terms of identifying and addressing gender impacts”, says Malena Wåhlin.
Need for raised awareness
Based on the workshop discussions, participants identified solutions to ensuring gender-sensitive and gender-responsive business policies. A clearer language on the need for companies to consider intersectional gender perspectives in the OECD Guidelines and associated due diligence documents, as well as amongst National Contact Points, was highlighted.
It was also concluded that multinational enterprises with responsibilities under the Guidelines need to increase their awareness of their responsibilities to conduct gender-sensitive due diligence, as well as their knowledge of gender-related impacts that may occur in their supply chains.
About OECD Watch OECD Watch is a global CSO network with more than 100 members in 55 countries, aiming to inform and advise the wider CSO community on how to use the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and its associated grievance mechanism to achieve corporate accountability and access to remedy. OECD Watch is also committed to improving the implementation and effectiveness of the guidelines through increased global CSO coordination and advocacy towards governments and international institutions. Swedwatch is a member of OECD Watch and its Steering Committee. OECD Gender Due Diligence Guidelines In May 2022 OECD Watch published a guide on Gender Due Diligence for civil society, based on the OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct. The guide sets out how civil society can evaluate a company’s due diligence, and among other includes guiding questions to assess whether a company has applied a gender lens at each step of due diligence.
+46 (0)70 755 92 90malena@swedwatch....
Article
Video
4 July, 2022
Duty bearers must walk the talk to ensure a healthy environment
Right to a healthy environment was high on the agenda at Stockholm+50 in June. When recognised by the UN member states at the upcoming General Assembly, it will provide an overarching framework for the existing body of environmental and human rights legislations and allow rightsholders to hold states and business actors accountable. Time is now for duty bearers to walk the talk and safeguard the right.
Across plenaries, leadership dialogues and side events during Stockholm+50 including a panel discussion co-organised by Swedwatch (see recording to the right), various speakers called for strengthening of legal institutions to safeguard a healthy planet.
These calls included recognising ecocide as an international crime, as well as legal right of Nature. However, recognition of the right to a healthy environment stood out. At the closing session of the Stockholm+50, Inger Anderson, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment emphasised that the human right to a healthy environment can no longer wait.
It should be emphasised that that the right to a healthy environment is not a new right. During the last decades, human rights bodies have underlined that a healthy environment is fundamental to enjoyment of the basic human rights. However, a universal recognition at the UN General Assembly can help to refine the application of the existing body of environmental and human rights legislations under a single framework. It strengthens the obligations of duty bearers, including states and business actors, to not only protect the environment but also ensure that individuals and groups across generations have procedural rights to environmental information, participation in environmental decision making, as well as access to justice and remedy.
Still, recognising the right is not enough. During Stockholm+50, the Swedish government was criticised for greenwashing the public and backtracking on the recommendations from the meeting. And we continue to see how economically driven interests contribute to environmental harm and obstruct the important work of environmental and human rights defenders around the globe.
If the UN member states, including Sweden, are serious in achieving the socially inclusive climate transition beyond the Stockholm+50, duty bearers need to not only recognise the right to a healthy environment at the UN General Assembly in July, but further enact their obligations and safeguard the right for current and future generations. And it bears reiterating that the peoples and communities in the global South are not only the most affected by the climate change and environmental harm; they are also key in forwarding the solutions needed and should be consulted and included in decision making. No time should be wasted. It is now time for duty bearers to walk the talk.Related Swedwatch material
Panel discussion at Stockholm+50:Policy paper:
A universal recognition of the right to a healthy environment at the UN General Assembly can help to refine the application of existing body of environmental and human rights legislations.
+46 (0)70 741 03 70jenny@swedwatch....
Article
22 June, 2022
Q&A with Liberian rights defender
Radiatu H.S. Kahnplaye took part in several events during Stockholm+50 in June 2022, including Swedwatch´s panel discussion about the right to a healthy environment and the role of defenders.
As a part of the launch of the report Prerequisite for Peace, Swedwatch asked Radiatu H.S. Kahnplaye, a Liberian environmental and women´s rights defender at Swedwatch’s local partner organisation Green Advocates International, to share her insights of how large-scale land acquisitions have impacted women’s rights in Libera.
Can you briefly describe the policy for economic development in Liberia, and especially as regards to attract investments?
A central part of the government’s strategy for economic development has been to attract foreign investments, and the past 5-13 years we have witnessed an influx of international corporations into Libera, as well as to other countries in our region. The promise has been that the investments will take people’s life to another level, deliver jobs and a better day. But what we have seen so far is rather that it has added to existing problems and worsened the situation for local communities, especially women who depend on land and natural resources for their livelihood.
In what way has the situation worsened?
When lands have been grabbed, due to large-scale land acquisitions by big corporations, indigenous communities in those areas have lost their rights to access the forests and rivers that form the basis for their livelihoods.
At the same time, local communities have experienced forceful evictions, economic displacements, destruction of villages and farmland, desecration of sacred places and pollution of water sources. Moreover, rivers have been dammed or taken over by private companies, depriving local communities of vital water sources for drinking, fishing, and washing.
In which ways are women in the communities affected differently to men?
Women in these communities are the most affected. For example, women gather medication from forest herbs and plants for their children and depend on access to water to run the households. What we experience now, as a result of the acquisitions, is that women have to rent land far away and travel to get access to clean water and other natural resources. As the travel takes time, women have less time to do farming activities.
Pollution from the business operations also affects the air. In some areas the pollution is so bad that you “don’t know where to turn your nose”. As a way to stand the smell, women that have to remain in air polluted areas have started to drink alcohol. This is adding to the drug addiction problem.
Has there been any positive, effects such as new job opportunities?
It is difficult to point out any positive effects, or at least that have benefitted local communities. As regards job opportunities, the majority of the people working on rubber plantations for example are from outside the local communities. This has partly to do with that the locals don’t have the skills needed for the jobs.
Besides, the jobs that were mainly used as justification for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are now threatened and unstainable. Big corporations are surprisingly laying off workers. Yet, for many workers allowed to stay on their jobs, they find they are no longer considered “employees” but mere “contractors” without the anticipated benefits that employees are normally entitled to. And, with farmlands destroyed along with forest resources, many community members find they are trapped as there is nothing to return to.
What kind of reactions have you seen from local communities, standing up for their right to land?
When people have protested in concession areas, they have been attacked and criminalised, even put in jail, and the military and police have protected the companies instead of the people.
When people face the risk of being sprayed with teargas that can make their eyes to blind, they have been discouraged to speak up, even if they want to. Women, running the households and with babies on their backs, are especially vulnerable to attacks if they speak up. This is far from what a sustainable investment should look like!
What is your idea of a sustainable land acquisitions?
It is key to involve the communities at an early stage of the investment, especially women, and to discuss what part of the rivers, land and forests are crucial for their livelihoods. To guarantee the communities the rights to those areas should be part of the decision to give out the concessions. Another important thing is that the companies should provide skills training to the local people – like how to drive a tractor or take up managerial roles.
What are your recommendations to investors or businesses with a supply chain relation to the corporations involved in large land acquisitions?
Put pressure on those corporations to follow international regulations! The reality is very different from the corporate sustainability documents, so you need to ensure due diligence and compare the online narratives with the stories from the people on the ground. This means ensuring that investment should not only be about the business case but also the social case – the protection of people and the environment.
About Radiatu H.S. Kahnplaye:
Radiatu is a Liberian environmental rights defender working on issues around business, human rights, and environment, and women’s rights. She is the Head of Administration and Finance at Green Advocates International, Swedwatch´s local partner organisation in Liberia. Radiatu is also a Policy Advisor for the Natural Resources Women Platform in Liberia.
About Green Advocates International (GAI):
GAI is a Liberian-based non-profit, public interest law, environmental and human rights organisation. It works to advance a wide range of rights-based issues through legal aid, consultation, and support for the victims of environmental and human rights violations, including support for business-affected communities to participate in decision-making processes in the management of Liberia’s natural resources and its economy. GAI also work to promote transparency and accountability in governmental activities and assistance in strengthening and enforcing environmental and human rights standards. See more at: www.greenadvocates.o...
Report
22 June, 2022
Companies impact women´s rights and social conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Liberia and Sierra Leone have identified economic growth, sustainable management of natural resources and inclusion of women as central to peace and prosperity. Still, research findings from Swedwatch show that business activities in land concession areas come with adverse impacts on human rights and the environment, contributing to conflict in already fragile settings.
"In Liberia and Sierra Leone, business activities in land concession areas have generated adverse social and environmental impacts like pollution and loss of livelihoods, particularly affecting women. According to joint research, they have also contributed to increase social tensions and land conflicts", says Jessica Johansson, researcher at Swedwatch and author of the report Prerequisite for Peace – The critical role of responsible business conduct in conflict prevention in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Swedwatch has for many years investigated the role of business in efforts to sustain peace in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and highlighted the need for thorough due diligence by companies operating in conflict-affected and high-risk settings. In both countries, land concessions and large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) – transfers of rights by states to business actors to use, own or control land – are identified as key to create growth, peace and prosperity, even though research shows that LSLAs often result in negative social and environmental impacts.
To further review the impacts of LSLAs on the environment, women’s rights and conflict, Swedwatch in collaboration with local partner organizations Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (Silnorf) and Green Advocates International in Liberia conducted a 15-month project including research through community interviews with mainly women in land concession areas in both countries, resulting in the report. In Liberia, 111 out of 161 respondents were women and in Sierra Leone all 250 respondents were women.
From the interviews, it was clear that women were often excluded from consultation processes around land and natural resource management. As one woman in a land concession area in Sierra Leone, interviewed in April 2022, put it:
"When the company expressed their intentions to lease our land, we the women were not consulted and not involved in the discussions leading to the lease of our land. Only the chiefs negotiated for the land - without our consent."The interviews also showed that conflicts and social tensions had increased in connection to land concessions and company activities. Furthermore, community members expressed concerns over water, air and soil pollution and of drinking water being contaminated. Many had experienced adverse impacts on their health and wellbeing. Women also spoke of gendered impacts that made them feel unsafe, including regular visitations by security guards in their communities, and having to travel longer distances to collect water.
Radiatu H.S. Kahnplaye, Head of Administration and Finance at Green Advocates International and Policy Advisor for the Natural Resources Women Platform in Liberia, confirms that women are often disproportionally impacted by land concessions and LSLAs.
"A central part of the government’s strategy for economic development has been to attract foreign investments, and the past 5-13 years we have witnessed an influx of international corporations into Libera, as well as to other countries in our region. The promise has been that the investments will take people’s life to another level, deliver jobs and a better day. But what we have seen so far is rather that it has added to existing problems and worsened the situation for local communities, especially women who depend on land and natural resources for their livelihood."
One of the women interviewed by Silnorf in Sierra Leone. The interviews were carried out in 40 communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the form of semi-structured interviews – using a survey as the basis including open-ended questions.Conclusions
The report summarises three key takeaways on the business impact on the environment, women, and peace in land concession areas.
First, natural resource management, peace and human rights are interconnected and must be addressed in conjunction to achieve development goals and sustain peace in an increasingly fragile world.
Secondly, companies and investors can contribute to peacebuilding by engaging in responsible business conduct.
Thirdly, when companies operate in high-risk or conflict-affected settings without considering environmental, human rights and conflict impacts, women and other marginalised groups tend to bear a disproportionate cost. In the case of Liberia and Sierra Leone, this occurred in terms of loss of land, livelihoods, exclusion from community consultations with companies, and others.
"Failure to include responsible business conduct, and a development strategy that extracts the same natural resources that local communities depend on for livelihood and sustenance runs the risk of undermining government goals of gender equality and sustainable resource use – and ultimately, of jeopardising efforts to achieve sustained peace and prosperity”, says Jessica Johansson.
Interrelations between business impact on environment, human rights, social conflict and women’s rights
Underlying grievances, like poverty and corruption, combined fragility due to external events such as Covid-19 and climate change, places additional pressure on conflict-affected areas and can increase the risk of conflict outbreak. Additionally, business-related adverse human rights- and environmental impacts tend to affect women disproportionally.
To achieve inclusive and sustained peace in anincreasingly fragile world, it is therefore important to ensure responsible business conduct.
Read the full report here:
"Women in these communities are the most affected": Q&A with Liberian rights defenderAbout sustaining peace and preventing conflictThis report understands peace as more than the absence of war and uses the terms sustaining peace and preventing conflict from the UN Sustaining Peace Agenda.
The report of the Secretary-General on the UN Sustaining Peace Agenda was launched in 2018. It laid the groundwork for a new approach to peace that focuses on preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation, and recurrence of conflict, taking all stakeholders’ needs into account, including women’s voices. The UN Security Council recognised that development, peace and security, and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing in efforts to prevent conflict and sustain peace.Failure to include responsible business conduct, and a development strategy that extracts the same natural resources that local communities depend on for livelihood and sustenance runs the risk of undermining government goals of gender equality and sustainable resource use.
Research and training in Sierra Leone and Liberia
The report summarises the key takeaways from a 15-month project carried out by Swedwatch together with local partner organisations GAI in Liberia and Silnorf in Sierra Leone. The research included more than 400 interviews with people, mainly women, in communities impacted by LSLAs.To disseminate the findings with women in affected communities, cartoon-based training materials, including information about rights to land, natural resources and women’ rights, were developed in the local language Pidgin English (Liberia) and Krio (Sierra Leone).
Recommendations outlined in the report
Businesses should carry out human rights due diligence alongside their environmental assessments, in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). In conflict-affected and high-risk settings, heightened due diligence should be carried out, as recommended by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, rooted in a conflict-sensitivity analysis.
Companies should also be gender sensitive and include women in consultations and refrain from any business-related gender-based discrimination or reprisals.
Governments and the EU Commission should adopt legislation on mandatory conflict-sensitive HRDD that includes accountability measures throughout company activities, value chains and investments. Considerations on business, human rights, and the environment should also be included in global peacebuilding agendas.
See more recommendations to businesses and other stakeholders in the report.
On the same topic:
Q&A with a Liberian rights defender
Murky Waters: Environmental and human rights impacts of natural rubber processing in Liberia
Business, Human Rights, Environment and Sustaining Peace
Swedwatch calls for integration of business and human rights into peace and security frameworks
Press contact+46 (0)70 932 92 49ami@swedwatch....
Article
31 May, 2022
Swedwatch files a complaint against Aker BP and Aker ASA
Thousands of people whose human rights were impacted by the operations of Swedish oil company Lundin Energy could end up without remedy when the company sells its assets to Norwegian Aker BP. Today, Swedwatch and seven other NGOs file a complaint against Aker BP and its owner Aker ASA for failing to comply with the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
On March 31, the AGM of Lundin Energy voted in favor of selling the company’s oil- and gas assets to Aker BP. If the deal takes place, Lundin Energy will lack sufficient resources to remedy the thousands of people who were impacted by the company’s operations during the civil war in Sudan.
Today, Swedwatch together with seven NGOs are filing complaints against the buyer Aker BP and its major owner Aker ASA, for failing to comply with OECD guidelines adopted to ensure that companies act responsibly. All OECD member states are committed to promote the guidelines, that include respect for human rights in business operations.
The complaints are filed with OECD’s National Contact Point in Norway, and state that the buying companies did not perform any analysis on how the acquisition of Lundin Energy's assets affects those impacted or their chances of receiving remedy.
"Through this acquisition, Aker becomes connected to Lundin Energy's dark past in Sudan. The deal was made without any form of consideration for those impacted and without adhering to the OECD guidelines", says Olof Björnsson, researcher at Swedwatch who has covered the issue for several years and is the author of the report Fuel for Conflict on the responsibilities of institutional investors with shares in Lundin Energy.
Together with the other complainants, Swedwatch requests that the acquisition is postponed until it can be completed in a manner that takes the human rights of those impacted into account. The complaint also requests that the impacts of Lundin Energy’s operations in Sudan are thoroughly assessed through consultations with those impacted and that the companies ensure that the human rights impacts are remedied – either by Aker BP or by retaining sufficient funds in Lundin Energy.
In November of 2021, the chairman of the board and former CEO of Lundin Energy were indicted for complicity in grave war crimes committed when the company was prospecting for oil in Sudan between 2000 and 2003 during the civil war. According to the indictment, the two men were complicit in crimes committed against civilians by the Sudanese military and its allied militias for the purpose of enabling oil extraction. According to the Swedish prosecutor, many civilians were killed, injured and displaced in violation of international humanitarian law – known as the laws of war.
"Lundin Energy has stated that their current oil assets in Norway, that are now being sold to Aker, were purchased with the profits from their operations in Sudan. So, the connection really is very clear", says Olof Björnsson.
Swedwatch welcomes the trial and the fact that the events during the oil wars in Sudan are finally tried in court. But even if the two men are convicted, it is only the around 30 plaintiffs in the court case that may be compensated. A conviction will not compensate the thousands of people who still live with the consequences of the company's actions during the civil war. Providing victims with remedy will be even more unfeasible should the Aker acquisition go through.
"The problem with the merger is that the money is moved to another company, while the human rights impacts remain the responsibility of Lundin Energy. Thus, Aker BP is playing a role in preventing those impacted from receiving remedy", says Olof Björnsson.The problem with the merger is that the money is moved to another company, while the human rights impacts remain the responsibility of Lundin Energy. Thus, Aker BP is playing a role in preventing those impacted from receiving remedy.Read the full complaints:
Aker BP - NCP complaint
Aker ASA - NCP complaintThe OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises operating in or from adhering countries. They provide non-binding principles and standards for responsible business conduct in a global context consistent with applicable laws and internationally recognized standards. The Guidelines are the only multilaterally agreed code of responsible business conduct that governments have committed to promoting.
The National Contact Points NCPs are agencies established by governments to promote the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and related due diligence guidance, and to handle cases as a non-judicial grievance mechanism. To date, 50 governments have an NCP.
The Norwegian NCP is organized as an expert body tasked with following up on Norway's obligations under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.On the same topic:
Article: Swedwatch welcomes historic indictment against Swedish oil company executives
Article: The role of past investors in delivering access to justice
Report: Fule for Conflict
Media (Swedish): Civilrättsorganisationer vill stoppa köpet av Lundin Energy
Press contact+46 (0)70 932 92 49ami@swedwatch....