Day 1 | 20 September

SESSION 2:

Translating the UNGPs into Real Change

13:30-14:45 ICT

Background

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) unanimously approved the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which provides a common understanding on States’ obligations and companies’ responsibilities to prevent and address the adverse human rights impacts caused by businesses. Despite this framework, different pathways to implementing the UNGPs have unfolded at the regional, national, and local levels, being shaped by stakeholders’ varied interpretations of what constitute States’ and businesses’ respective obligations and responsibilities. For the UNGPs to engender change as envisioned in the Roadmap for the next decade of business and human rights presented by the Working Group on business and human rights,[1] this requires all stakeholders to work collaboratively to translate the UNGPs—in both policy, tangible results, and linguistic terms—in ways that speak to diverse audiences and on-the-ground realities. Bringing together a diverse panel of experts, this roundtable session will explore to what extent there exists a common interpretation of the UNGPs in the Asia-Pacific region, identifying both good practices and challenges. In so doing, speakers will discuss the opportunities for, and challenges to, leveraging context-sensitive and intersectional approaches to human rights due diligence, meaningful stakeholder engagement, and remediation.

Objectives

The key objectives of this session are to:

Open up a safe space for dialogue to explore the different ways that a common understanding of the UNGPs and their implementation can be achieved, with a view to encouraging the UNGPs’ uptake in the Asia-Pacific region.
Examine how the State’s duty to protect, business responsibility to respect, including corporate accountability, and access to remedy are being or not interpreted and operationalized in the Asia-Pacific through a context-sensitive and intersectional lens.
Discuss how the UNGPs should be deployed to address the specific intersectional circumstances and vulnerabilities of groups or individuals at heightened risk of business-related human rights abuses.
Analyze how the UNGPs can be enhanced, through context-sensitivity and intersectionality, as a powerful tool to tackle inequalities and realize a just green transition and sustainable future for all.
Examine how different stakeholders in the region could utilize the key action areas in the Roadmap for the next decade of business and human rights to arrive at a fuller and shared realization of the UNGPs.

Guiding Questions

Panelists will reflect on the following questions:

How adequately are the UNGPs currently being translated in both policy and linguistic terms to speak to different audiences (e.g. civil society, business, governments, groups in vulnerable and marginalized situations), especially when these actors do not share a uniform understanding of the Principles?
What tools can be leveraged to foster a common understanding of the UNGPs among stakeholders at the local, national, regional, and global level?
How can the language of the UNGPs be designed, and the Principles themselves implemented, in a more context-sensitive and intersectional manner? What are the benefits and/or risks involved in doing so?
What positive examples exist of the UNGPs’ implementation that is context-sensitive, without undermining or weakening human rights protection standards? What are some of the challenges?
What are the priority action areas from the Roadmap for the next decade of business and human rights that stakeholders can tackle to achieve the realization of the UNGPs in the Asia-Pacific region? What is required from different stakeholders to accelerate this process and achieve real change?

Day1 programme

SPEAKERS

Manja Bayang

Mary Ann Manja Bayang is an indigenous lawyer, who has over two decades of experience working on Indigenous Peoples rights, land rights, environment, women's rights, business and human rights, among others. Her experience spans from the grassroots to the international arena. Her expertise includes legal and policy advocacy, alliance and network building, capacity building, research, program management, and project coordination. More recently, she worked for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Indigenous Peoples Rights International while consulting with or sitting in the board or steering committees of various other international organizations.

Pochoy Labog

Pochoy Labog is the Southeast Asia Researcher & Representative for the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. He is responsible for research on business-linked rights abuses and company outreach in the Southeast Asia region. Prior to joining the Centre, he was the Legal Services Coordinator of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center or Friends of the Earth - Philippines where he led the litigation of cases aimed to advance the rights of indigenous peoples and upland, rural, poor communities.

Nareeluc Pairchaiyapoom

Nareeluc Pairchaiyapoom is the Director of the International Human Rights Division of the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, Ministry of Justice, Thailand. She is a team leader in drafting NAP and pushing forward the NAP implementation & Business and Human Rights Agenda in Thailand. Nareeluc was awarded the “Thailand’s Best Government Officer Award” in 2013 and the “Rising Star of the Year Award 2017” as presented by the prestigious Associations of Thai Government Scholarship Students.

Kelly Scott

Kelly applies her international business and human rights experience to BSR’s consulting work across a number of industries in Asia Pacific. Kelly has led and participated in human rights impact assessments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, and the United States. Prior to joining BSR, Kelly focused on driving business respect and support for children’s rights across a number of sectors at UNICEF UK. She also spent six years at the Institute for Human Rights and Business.

Pichamon Yeophantong

Pichamon Yeophantong serves as the Vice-Chairperson and Member from Asia-Pacific States on the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. She is also Associate Professor and Head of Research at the Centre for Future Defence and National Security, Deakin University. As a political scientist, Pichamon teaches and publishes field-based research on business and human rights, and the political economy of sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific.

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