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Panel

Strengthening Access to Remedy in the Financial Sector Amid Global Turbulence

ORGANIZED BY

United Nations Environment Programme and Jacer

15-Sep

10:30-11:30

Conference Room 2

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Financial institutions shape economic activity, infrastructure and the transition to a low-carbon economy across Asia. But when human rights impacts occur, affected people can face barriers to effective remedy. This session will explore practical pathways to strengthen access to remedy, bringing together financial institutions, accountability mechanisms, civil society and policymakers to consider how transparency, grievance mechanisms and leverage can be strengthened.

Overview

Across Asia, financial institutions play a critical role in enabling economic activity, infrastructure development and the transition to a low-carbon economy. Yet when adverse human rights impacts occur, affected people can face significant barriers to effective remedy. These barriers may reflect practical challenges relating to transparency, the scope and eligibility criteria of grievance mechanisms, and changes in leverage while impacts remain unresolved.

 

Against this backdrop, the session will explore how financial institutions, accountability mechanisms, civil society and policymakers can strengthen access to effective remedy. Rather than focusing only on existing gaps, the discussion will examine practical pathways for advancing access to remedy in the sector.

 

Drawing on the experience of grievance and accountability mechanisms, the session will first examine what access to remedy looks like in practice: what existing mechanisms can offer, what appears to be working, and where persistent gaps remain between access to a process and effective remedy. Civil society perspectives will then help identify structural barriers and practical approaches to addressing challenges such as confidentiality, complex financial relationships and parallel judicial proceedings. In addition, the session will explore how clearer expectations from financial institutions regarding their clients’ approach to remedy can support more effective client engagement and help institutions use and build leverage to enable remedy. Finally, it will consider how emerging policy and regulatory developments in Thailand and the wider region can help make effective remedy a more systemic feature of financial sector accountability.

 

Key questions

Access to remedy remains one of the most challenging dimensions of implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. There is an urgent need for clearer guidance and practical approaches to overcoming persistent barriers to effective remedy in the financial sector, including how to navigate confidentiality constraints, complex financial relationships, changing leverage and parallel judicial proceedings.

 

Who should attend?

This session is intended for governments, businesses, employment service providers, migrant worker advocates, representatives and civil society organizations, as well as international organizations, researchers and practitioners working on migration, business and human rights.

 

What participants will gain

  • What does access to remedy through grievance and accountability mechanisms look like in practice, and where do the most significant gaps between access to a process and effective remedy remain?

  • What structural and practical barriers most consistently prevent affected people from obtaining effective remedy in cases involving financial institutions, and what concrete approaches can help overcome them?

  • How can financial institutions and accountability mechanisms manage complex financial relationships (intermediaries), changing leverage and exit in ways that avoid gaps in accountability and remedy?

  • How can clear expectations regarding client conduct support more effective client engagement and help enable remedy?

  • How can emerging policy and regulatory frameworks support stronger and more systemic conditions for effective remedy?

 

Additional resources

Speakers

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