Breaking silos: 

UN South Asia Forum 2021 Tackles Workers’ Rights, SDGs, And Vaccination 

(Part 1 of a series)

Voltaire Veneracion

23 March 2020

With the world still in varying degrees of pandemic lockdown, over 1,500 people from more than 50 countries joined the UN South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights 2021 last week from 15 to 19 March 2021.

Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka each had Country-in-Focus sessions on their respective challenges and opportunities for advancing BHR, allowing international participants to see commonalities and differences between South Asia and their own respective regions.

UNDP’s Harpreet Kaur said in a session that the organisers will seek to include more South Asian countries in future UN Fora on this dynamic and fast-growing region.

Participants listened to interventions lauding the simultaneous interpretation of sessions in some local languages like Hindi, Tamil, Nepali, and Bengali and asking the organisers to invite, to future Fora, representatives of the region’s most vulnerable: stateless people and refugees like the Rohingya.

The virtual Forum was co-organized by B+HR Asia, UNDP, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and International Labour Organization (ILO).

According to the webpage of the Forum on OHCHR’s site, this year’s online gathering on the Business and Human Rights had four objectives:

To raise awareness and build the capacity of various stakeholders around business and human rights standards, including the UNGPs and the ILO MNE Declaration;

• To take stock of the key challenges, opportunities and progress made in South Asia on the business and human rights agenda, including in implementing the UNGPs by developing national action plans and encouraging business to conduct human rights due diligence;
• To explore linkages between the business and human rights agenda and the 2030 Agenda; and
• To encourage peer-learning amongst governments, national employers’ organizations, trade unions, national human rights institutions (NHRIs), businesses, and civil society organisations (CSOs) in South Asia, facilitating the regional exchange of good practices in implementing the UNGPs and the ILO MNE Declaration and contributing to achieving the SDGs.

Respecting workers

Labor rights are human rights.

This was the main takeaway from the 16 March session, “Introduction to the UNGPs and the ILO MNE Declaration.”

The ILO Tripartite Declaration concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (MNE Declaration) is the ILO instrument that provides direct guidance to companies on social policy and inclusive, responsible and sustainable workplace practices.

The pre-Forum session was organised by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The first speaker Prof. Surya Deva, vice-chair of the above UN Working Group, gave a quick rundown of the Three Pillars and Principles of UNGP.

Afterwards, speaker Githa Roelans of ILO introduced session participants to the MNE Declaration. She also explained its interrelationship to BHR.

Since 2013, Roelans has been head of the ILO unit providing policy advice and technical assistance to governments, employers and workers on the application of the MNE Declaration.

Like UNGP, the MNE Declaration is soft law that lays down both legal duties and social expectations. MNE Declaration principles clarify existing international rules on work standards derived from ILO Declarations, ILO Conventions and Recommendations, and ILO codes of practice, guidelines and other guidance.

Moreover, MNE Declaration principles are consistent with the roles and responsibilities of various actors as explained in the Three Pillars of UNGP on BHR.

The state’s duty to protect labor rights includes the enforcement of state laws and policies on labor, including its administration, public inspection and promotion of good practices among companies.

The business responsibility to respect workers’ rights and follow labor laws includes making company policies and practices on employees’ rights, conducting due diligence, and aligning business operations with national development priorities.

Finally, workers whose rights have been violated must have access to remedy as covered by labor laws and published company policies on industrial relations, examination of grievances, and settlement of industrial disputes.

Roelans explained that the definition of “internationally recognised human rights” under Principle 12 of UNGPincludes the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

Complementarily, the MNE Declaration’s paragraph 10 references the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its corresponding International Covenants, and UNGP.

The session showed participants how these two landmark international instruments – traditionally seen in separate silos – actually reinforce each other’s principles for greater impact in business due diligence, civic campaigns and concrete cases and how advocates of BHR and labor rights (including trade unions) can amplify each others’ messaging with collaboration.

Governments’ national action plans on human rights and companies’ rights policies and due diligence could also be made simpler and more holistic by implementing their principles together instead of separately.

Read the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights here and the ILO MNE Declaration here.

(To be continued)