Day 2 | 21 September

SESSION 7:

Citizens and Consumers: The missing link

15:15-16:30 ICT

Background

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) outline the complementary state duty to protect human rights and business responsibility to respect human rights. The UNGPs also emphasise that civil society actors play an indispensable role in realizing more responsible business practices. It is widely acknowledged that civil society organizations, human rights defenders and journalists play indispensable roles in exposing business-related human rights abuses in society. Once awareness about business and human rights issues (BHR) has been raised, citizens and consumers can be instrumental in pushing governments and businesses to address business and human rights (BHR) issues.

The architect of the UNGPs, the late John Ruggie, argued that the failure of businesses to meet their responsibility to respect human rights can subject them to “the courts of public opinion”. Indeed, consumer scrutiny can harm a company’s reputation and jeopardize its social license to operate. Moreover, consumer behaviour can also influence the financial performance of companies. For example, consumer boycotts can disincentivise companies to disrespect human rights, whereas the willingness of consumers to pay a premium for responsible products or services can incentivise companies to respect human rights. Viewed in this light, in some instances responsible consumption could help strengthen the business case to respect human rights.

Unfortunately, often a business case to respect human rights might not exist or lead to changes in business practices, for example, because the business is not consumer-facing, or because consumers do not take into account human rights performance when purchasing products or services. In those instances, citizens and others can have a key role in incentivize governments to protect human rights and advocating for the development and enforcement of BHR legislation.

Against this background, the session aims to discuss how to build impactful social movements across Asia-Pacific to promote business respect for human rights.

Objectives

The key objectives of this session are to:

Discuss how citizens and consumers can promote business respect for human rights
Highlight examples of how citizens and consumers have strengthened political will and responsible business practices;
Identify how to harness the power of citizens and consumers in promoting greater business respect for human rights moving forward.

Guiding Questions

Panelists will reflect on the following questions:

What are some examples of how consumers have influenced (ir)responsible business behaviour, and how citizens have strengthened political will to protect human rights, in Asia and beyond?
What opportunities exist, and what challenges need to be overcome, to harness the power of citizens and consumers in promoting greater business respect for human rights in Asia and the Pacific ?
In the face of shrinking civic space, what strategies can be employed to facilitate the emergence or maintenance of social movements? How can voices be amplified in environments where dissent is discouraged and/or punished?

Day1 programme

SPEAKERS

Sumi Dhanarajan

Sumi Dhanarajan is the Associate Director for Forum for the Future APAC, a non-profit international organisation with a mission to catalyse a deep and urgent transition to a just and regenerative future. Her work in the business and human rights field began in 1998 as a policy adviser for Oxfam GB's private sector advocacy team. In previous roles, she has served as a human rights officer to the Malaysian Bar Council, senior legal adviser to the Hong Kong Democratic Party's Secretariat for Legislative Councillors, and lead for the 'Public Roles of the Private Sector' programme at the Centre for Asia and Globalisation, LKY School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She is a founding trustee of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and has recently completed her second term on WEF's Global Futures Council for Human Rights.

Stefania Perna

Stefania is Project Manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF). Since 2020, Stefania leads the Foundation’s work on forced labour, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, she leads a project on strengthening multi-stakeholder responses to modern slavery and human trafficking abuses in Malaysia, Thailand, India and Colombia. With more than 10-year experience in programme management and partnership building, Stefania has worked for renowned international organisations in the field of poverty eradication, electoral assistance and policy engagement.

Shubhabrata Roy

Shubho is the Chair at BIAS, a prominent behaviour change consultancy based out of India. BIAS is a collaboration between leading behavioural scientists, academic institutions, policy influencers and private sector players. Shubho’s specialisation lies in consumer behaviour, inclusive innovation, entrepreneurship and scaling, and he has been at the forefront of the behavioural science discourse in India. He sits on board of Leapfrog Strategy Consulting and associated with leading research and academic institutions as a consultant, collaborator or even a student. His academic misadventures include a masters in management specialising in marketing and strategy, another post graduation in design thinking and at present specialising in Public Policy, with a focus on Science, Technology and Innovation.

Kevin Lehmann

Kevin is a Business and Human Rights Analyst at UNDP. Before joining UNDP, he advocated for government action on business and human rights as a member of the Dutch section of the International Commission of Jurists, conducted human rights due diligence for a retailer with global supply chains, conducted research on responsible business for a pro-bono legal research project, and worked for an environmental technology start-up. Kevin holds a Master of Laws (LLM) in Globalisation and Law from Maastricht University, a Bachelor of Laws in International Business Law from Leiden University, and studied business administration at Monash University in Australia. He is an avid reader and keeps a close eye on developments pertaining to business and human rights and related topics.

United Nations Responsible Business and Human Rights Forum, Asia-Pacific