Human Rights Impact Assessment
Encyclopedia
Human Rights Impact Assessment is a process for systematically identifying, predicting and responding to the potential human rights impacts of a business operation, capital project, government policy, or trade agreement. It is designed to compliment a Company or Government’s other impact assessment and due diligence processes and to be framed by appropriate international human rights
principles and conventions. It is also rooted in the realities of the particular project by incorporating the context within which it will operate from the outset, and by engaging directly with those peoples whose rights may be at risk.
appointed Professor John Ruggie
to the post of Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations. His mandate was, “to identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights.” This broad task included a request "To develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments of the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises." The mandate was set to expire in June of 2008, but Professor Ruggie requested, and was granted, a three-year extension. That extension culminated in a set of Guiding Principles for companies and governments, with companies asked to conduct human rights "due diligence." "In order to identify, prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts, and to account for their performance, business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, and tracking as well as communicating their performance."
In March of 2011 the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) augmented its reporting standards to include a Human Rights Impact Assessment requirement. GRI now has 11 human rights standards (up from two), the 10th of which calls on companies to state what percentage of operations have been subject to human rights impact assessment.
Little guidance existed to define the process of assessing human rights impacts when Ruggie was called on to establish methodologies, and he stated publicly in 2006 that "the dimensions of this task unfortunately turn out to be beyond the resource and time constraints of the mandate." . However, Ruggie committed to "closely monitor two ongoing efforts" to establish HRIA methodologies, specifically, the efforts of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the International Finance Corporation, who were each working on methodologies for human rights assessment.
In June of 2011, the United Nations voted and concluded that the Guiding Principles were to be supported and endorsed by the UN.
Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) is a Canadian institution created through an Act of Parliament in 1988. Rights & Democracy initiated a multi-year research initiative in 2004 with the objective of creating a community-based human rights impact assessment (HRIA) methodology and guiding tool. An advisory committee, including former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, and academics from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia, participated in a number of reviews and seminars to determine the approach and scope of the methodology. The first version of the R&D tool comprised a ten-step process with accompanying indicator guide that was tested in 5 pilot studies available at www.dd-rd.ca. The pilot studies inspired a revision of the methodology into the form of a freely available CD-ROM. In 2008, R&D partnered with Oxfam America and the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) to conduct further assessment studies in the USA, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cameroon. A third version of the methodology, which will be web-based, is set for release in the fall of 2011.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), in collaboration with the London-based International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) produced a Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment and Management Road-Testing Draft in August of 2007, which it updated in June 2010 . Eni
announced in January 2010 that it had piloted the IFC/IBLF tool, and the IBLF reports that other companies have also been part of a road-testing process.
A Denver, Colorado-based think tank called Nomogaia
developed a Methodology for Human Rights Impact Assessment , which is accompanied by the most comprehensive database of case studies available to the public. Unlike the Danish Institute's tool, Nomogaia's methodology relies heavily on field research and incorporates an extensive "Rightsholder Engagement" process that aims to incorporate the views and experiences of the most vulnerable members of impacted communities.
Washington, D.C.-based law firm Foley Hoag conducts Human Rights Impact Assessments, which are confidential, with the exception of its HRIA on BP's Tangguh project in Papua New Guinea. The Executive Summary to that assessment is available online.
On Common Ground, a Vancouver, Canada-based consulting group, was hired to conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment for the Marlin Mine in Guatemala, owned by Gold Corp. The report was ultimately concluded to be a Human Rights Assessment, because assessors could not contrast baseline with change to establish impacts. The assessors also noted that the report could not be considered an impact assessment because the most significantly impacted rightsholder group, the Sipacapa people, were not interviewed or engaged during the assessment process. The methodology used by On Common Ground, as the document states, incorporated the Danish Institute's Compliance Assessment. It involved interviews (one-on-one and in focus groups) with nearly two hundred people. Assessors conducted thoughtful analysis of the tools, standards and guides used and were highly self-reflective about the strengths and weaknesses of their report. Commissioned years after production (and community revolt) had begun at the mine, local conditions and project design had all changed drastically by the time assessors arrived. Further complicating the assessment, the mine’s EIA was faulty and peppered with gaps. The HRA identified those gaps and went to the expense of commissioning a follow-up environmental study to verify, create, and update information that was not extant or usable in the original EIA.
Rights & Democracy published a collection of case studies in 2007, assessing foreign investment projects in in the Philippines (mining), Tibet (surveillance technology), the Democratic Republic of Congo (mining), Argentina (water privatization), and Peru (mining). In all examples, except Tibet, companies participated in the assessment by providing information, interviews, and feedback on various draft texts. The studies were used differently by the communities that produced them. In Peru, the impact assessment resulted in an ongoing dialogue with company representatives. In the case of Argentina, the assessment formed the basis of an amicus curiae submitted by civil society to an arbitration process between European companies and the Government of Argentina. In the Philippine case, the assessment was submitted to the United Nations Committee on Racism as a shadow report. Each of the participating communities reported that the experience had offered them a constructive means to advocate for their human rights. . Several other organizations are now conducting HRIA using the R&D methodology. For example, Oxfam America completed an impact assessment focused on migrant labour in the tobacco producing areas of the southern United States. The final report inspired the CEO of Reynolds Tobacco to issue a call for industry-wide reforms. In another example, Atlanta-based, the Carter Center, is currently using the R&D methodology to carry an HRIA in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nomogaia has published each HRIA upon completion and and carries out monitoring activities to gauge changes in corporate behavior, policies and performance.
The HRIA for Dole Fresh Fruit depicted the human rights impacts of Dole's pineapple operations in northern Costa Rica, identifying community relations as a weak spot in human rights due diligence, while finding labor rights well protected.
The HRIA for Paladin Energy assessed the impacts of a uranium mine on a rural Malawian community that had experienced no previous industrialization. Major human rights risks included impacts associated with HIV/AIDS, inadequate communication, and gender discrimination. Monitoring showed significant improvements in HIV management, while environmental and financial disclosure continued to lag. Nomogaia presented these shortcomings as negatively impacting the right to public participation and, potentially, the right to a clean environment.
Nomogaia's Green Resources HRIA was conducted a decade after the company had developed pine and eucalyptus plantations in southern Tanzania, but prior to large-scale harvesting. Assessment revealed major human rights violations, from inadequate housing, transportation, food and wages, to failure to uphold occupational health and safety standards and provide clean water, to breaches of labor contracts and international commitments. Monitoring revealed major improvements in wages, food, and transportation and minor improvements in housing. The right to water remains unfulfilled, according to the latest HRIA Monitoring report, updated December 2010.
The earliest call for HRIA of Trade Agreements emerged in 2001 in a report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The report sought to analyze the human rights impacts of the Trade-Related Aspects of International Property (TRIPS) agreement, which sets minimum standards for intellectual property protections. The TRIPS HRIA focused specifically on the trade agreement's impact on the right to health, but it demonstrated that trade agreements can impact a wealth of human rights. Almost immediately on the heels of that report, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) developed a "Handbook in Human Rights Impact Assessment" (reference and elaboration below).
The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, requires the governments of both Canada and Colombia to produce an annual human rights impact assessment of the FTA. The first assessment reports will be due in 2012. The Government of Canada is in the process of developing its methodology for the HRIA.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, is currently drafting Guidelines for Human Rights Impacts of Trade Agreements. The Guidelines, when completed, will be submitted for approval to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Some of the most comprehensive work on HRIAs for Trade Agreements has been conducted by UN staffer Simon Walker and Warwick Law Professor James Harrison (independently).
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and 3D have become vocal proponents of HRIA for Trade Agreements in recent years, documenting both the need and the progress made in the field.
The Thai Human Rights Commission conducted an ex ante impact assessment of the US-Thai Free Trade Agreement, which has never emerged beyond draft form. Simon Walker has criticized the HRIA as"methodologically weak."
Costa Rica's national human rights institution undertook an ex ante impact assessment of the intellectual property provisions of the Dominican Republic-US-Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005. It was conducted without an explicit methodology and was labeled "considerations" rather than an impact assessment.
The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance developed a methodology for right to food impact assessment of trade. It was tested on three case studies of rice-farming communities in Ghana, Honduras and Indonesia.
The Humanist Committee on Human Rights (HOM) developed a human rights impact assessment approach to women's health, which is published in Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (2006). Like the Rights & Democracy methodology (described above), the HOM approach is designed for use by civil society. Civil society groups in Nepal and the Netherlands used the tool to develop policy recommendations for their respective governments.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Health Paul Hunt, in collaboration with Gillian MacNaughton of the Essex University Human Rights Center, produced a case study on the right to health in 2006, which included a case study as well as an analysis of the Norad, Rights & Democracy and HOM Health Rights of Women Assessment Instruments.
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
principles and conventions. It is also rooted in the realities of the particular project by incorporating the context within which it will operate from the outset, and by engaging directly with those peoples whose rights may be at risk.
Background
In 2005 the Secretary-General of the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
appointed Professor John Ruggie
John Ruggie
John Gerard Ruggie is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School...
to the post of Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations. His mandate was, “to identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights.” This broad task included a request "To develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments of the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises." The mandate was set to expire in June of 2008, but Professor Ruggie requested, and was granted, a three-year extension. That extension culminated in a set of Guiding Principles for companies and governments, with companies asked to conduct human rights "due diligence." "In order to identify, prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts, and to account for their performance, business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, and tracking as well as communicating their performance."
In March of 2011 the Global Reporting Initiative
Global Reporting Initiative
The Global Reporting Initiative produces one of the world's most prevalent standards for sustainability reporting - also known as ecological footprint reporting, Environmental Social Governance reporting, Triple Bottom Line reporting, Corporate Social Responsibility reporting...
(GRI) augmented its reporting standards to include a Human Rights Impact Assessment requirement. GRI now has 11 human rights standards (up from two), the 10th of which calls on companies to state what percentage of operations have been subject to human rights impact assessment.
Little guidance existed to define the process of assessing human rights impacts when Ruggie was called on to establish methodologies, and he stated publicly in 2006 that "the dimensions of this task unfortunately turn out to be beyond the resource and time constraints of the mandate." . However, Ruggie committed to "closely monitor two ongoing efforts" to establish HRIA methodologies, specifically, the efforts of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the International Finance Corporation, who were each working on methodologies for human rights assessment.
In June of 2011, the United Nations voted and concluded that the Guiding Principles were to be supported and endorsed by the UN.
Methodologies
The Danish Institute for Human Rights created two tools: one a "Quick Check" that could be conducted from the confines of a corporate office, and the other a Human Rights Compliance Assessment (HRCA) tool. Only the Quick Check is publicly available , and companies sign agreements vowing not to publish or share any element of the HRCA reports they create. The HRCA is described by the Danish Institute as "a comprehensive tool designed to detect human rights risks in company operations. It covers all internationally recognized human rights and their impact on all stakeholders, including employees, local communities, customers and host governments. The tool incorporates a database of approximately 200 questions and 1,000 indicators, each measuring the implementation of human rights in company policies and procedures. The database incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more than 80 human rights treaties and ILO conventions." Although no HRCAs have been published, the Danish Institute states that "hundreds of companies" have used it.Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) is a Canadian institution created through an Act of Parliament in 1988. Rights & Democracy initiated a multi-year research initiative in 2004 with the objective of creating a community-based human rights impact assessment (HRIA) methodology and guiding tool. An advisory committee, including former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, and academics from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia, participated in a number of reviews and seminars to determine the approach and scope of the methodology. The first version of the R&D tool comprised a ten-step process with accompanying indicator guide that was tested in 5 pilot studies available at www.dd-rd.ca. The pilot studies inspired a revision of the methodology into the form of a freely available CD-ROM. In 2008, R&D partnered with Oxfam America and the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) to conduct further assessment studies in the USA, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cameroon. A third version of the methodology, which will be web-based, is set for release in the fall of 2011.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), in collaboration with the London-based International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) produced a Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment and Management Road-Testing Draft in August of 2007, which it updated in June 2010 . Eni
Eni
Eni S.p.A. is an Italian multinational oil and gas company, present in 70 countries, and currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 87.7 billion euros , as of July 24, 2008...
announced in January 2010 that it had piloted the IFC/IBLF tool, and the IBLF reports that other companies have also been part of a road-testing process.
A Denver, Colorado-based think tank called Nomogaia
NomoGaia
Established February 2008 in Denver, Colorado, NomoGaia is a nonprofit research and policy organization dedicated to clarifying the corporate role in human rights protection and facilitating corporate responsibility for communities impacted by capital projects...
developed a Methodology for Human Rights Impact Assessment , which is accompanied by the most comprehensive database of case studies available to the public. Unlike the Danish Institute's tool, Nomogaia's methodology relies heavily on field research and incorporates an extensive "Rightsholder Engagement" process that aims to incorporate the views and experiences of the most vulnerable members of impacted communities.
Washington, D.C.-based law firm Foley Hoag conducts Human Rights Impact Assessments, which are confidential, with the exception of its HRIA on BP's Tangguh project in Papua New Guinea. The Executive Summary to that assessment is available online.
On Common Ground, a Vancouver, Canada-based consulting group, was hired to conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment for the Marlin Mine in Guatemala, owned by Gold Corp. The report was ultimately concluded to be a Human Rights Assessment, because assessors could not contrast baseline with change to establish impacts. The assessors also noted that the report could not be considered an impact assessment because the most significantly impacted rightsholder group, the Sipacapa people, were not interviewed or engaged during the assessment process. The methodology used by On Common Ground, as the document states, incorporated the Danish Institute's Compliance Assessment. It involved interviews (one-on-one and in focus groups) with nearly two hundred people. Assessors conducted thoughtful analysis of the tools, standards and guides used and were highly self-reflective about the strengths and weaknesses of their report. Commissioned years after production (and community revolt) had begun at the mine, local conditions and project design had all changed drastically by the time assessors arrived. Further complicating the assessment, the mine’s EIA was faulty and peppered with gaps. The HRA identified those gaps and went to the expense of commissioning a follow-up environmental study to verify, create, and update information that was not extant or usable in the original EIA.
Case Studies
In addition to the Marlin HRA and the BP Executive Summary of HRIA, thirteen corporate HRIA case studies are publicly available. Seven were produced by Canadian nonprofit Rights and Democracy, two by Oxfam America, and four were produced by Nomogaia.Rights & Democracy published a collection of case studies in 2007, assessing foreign investment projects in in the Philippines (mining), Tibet (surveillance technology), the Democratic Republic of Congo (mining), Argentina (water privatization), and Peru (mining). In all examples, except Tibet, companies participated in the assessment by providing information, interviews, and feedback on various draft texts. The studies were used differently by the communities that produced them. In Peru, the impact assessment resulted in an ongoing dialogue with company representatives. In the case of Argentina, the assessment formed the basis of an amicus curiae submitted by civil society to an arbitration process between European companies and the Government of Argentina. In the Philippine case, the assessment was submitted to the United Nations Committee on Racism as a shadow report. Each of the participating communities reported that the experience had offered them a constructive means to advocate for their human rights. . Several other organizations are now conducting HRIA using the R&D methodology. For example, Oxfam America completed an impact assessment focused on migrant labour in the tobacco producing areas of the southern United States. The final report inspired the CEO of Reynolds Tobacco to issue a call for industry-wide reforms. In another example, Atlanta-based, the Carter Center, is currently using the R&D methodology to carry an HRIA in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nomogaia has published each HRIA upon completion and and carries out monitoring activities to gauge changes in corporate behavior, policies and performance.
The HRIA for Dole Fresh Fruit depicted the human rights impacts of Dole's pineapple operations in northern Costa Rica, identifying community relations as a weak spot in human rights due diligence, while finding labor rights well protected.
The HRIA for Paladin Energy assessed the impacts of a uranium mine on a rural Malawian community that had experienced no previous industrialization. Major human rights risks included impacts associated with HIV/AIDS, inadequate communication, and gender discrimination. Monitoring showed significant improvements in HIV management, while environmental and financial disclosure continued to lag. Nomogaia presented these shortcomings as negatively impacting the right to public participation and, potentially, the right to a clean environment.
Nomogaia's Green Resources HRIA was conducted a decade after the company had developed pine and eucalyptus plantations in southern Tanzania, but prior to large-scale harvesting. Assessment revealed major human rights violations, from inadequate housing, transportation, food and wages, to failure to uphold occupational health and safety standards and provide clean water, to breaches of labor contracts and international commitments. Monitoring revealed major improvements in wages, food, and transportation and minor improvements in housing. The right to water remains unfulfilled, according to the latest HRIA Monitoring report, updated December 2010.
Background
HRIAs of government actions assess the impact of trade agreements, policies, and projects, which are not specifically designed with human rights in mind. As with corporate HRIA, government HRIAs aim to inform decision makers and rightsholders of probable impacts so that they can improve the proposal to reduce potential negative effects and increase positive ones. Human Rights Impact Assessment is only the most recent iteration of impact assessment for trade agreements and policy decisions, the earliest of which was economic assessment. For trade agreements, Economic Impact Assessment predicts the likely input of trade agreements on the economy, production, employment and welfare, has become an established science in the field. Calls for environmental and, to some extent, social impact assessments gained strength in the 1990s, as practitioners have come to understand comprehensively the effects of trade. Today, Canada, Norway, the US and a handful of other developed countries regularly undertake national environmental reviews of trade policies. The social and other impacts of trade negotiations and agreements are still addressed ad hoc.The earliest call for HRIA of Trade Agreements emerged in 2001 in a report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The report sought to analyze the human rights impacts of the Trade-Related Aspects of International Property (TRIPS) agreement, which sets minimum standards for intellectual property protections. The TRIPS HRIA focused specifically on the trade agreement's impact on the right to health, but it demonstrated that trade agreements can impact a wealth of human rights. Almost immediately on the heels of that report, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) developed a "Handbook in Human Rights Impact Assessment" (reference and elaboration below).
The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, requires the governments of both Canada and Colombia to produce an annual human rights impact assessment of the FTA. The first assessment reports will be due in 2012. The Government of Canada is in the process of developing its methodology for the HRIA.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, is currently drafting Guidelines for Human Rights Impacts of Trade Agreements. The Guidelines, when completed, will be submitted for approval to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Some of the most comprehensive work on HRIAs for Trade Agreements has been conducted by UN staffer Simon Walker and Warwick Law Professor James Harrison (independently).
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and 3D have become vocal proponents of HRIA for Trade Agreements in recent years, documenting both the need and the progress made in the field.
Methodologies and Case Studies
NORAD produced the first methodology for government Human Rights Impact Assessment with its 2001 Handbook in Human Rights Impact Assessment: State Obligations, Awareness & Empowerment. This handbook, as described by NORAD, "aims at providing the user with a practical tool for enhancing the human rights profile of development programmes." Implementation and testing has been limited, however, and it has been described as simplistic and preliminary. .The Thai Human Rights Commission conducted an ex ante impact assessment of the US-Thai Free Trade Agreement, which has never emerged beyond draft form. Simon Walker has criticized the HRIA as"methodologically weak."
Costa Rica's national human rights institution undertook an ex ante impact assessment of the intellectual property provisions of the Dominican Republic-US-Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005. It was conducted without an explicit methodology and was labeled "considerations" rather than an impact assessment.
The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance developed a methodology for right to food impact assessment of trade. It was tested on three case studies of rice-farming communities in Ghana, Honduras and Indonesia.
The Humanist Committee on Human Rights (HOM) developed a human rights impact assessment approach to women's health, which is published in Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (2006). Like the Rights & Democracy methodology (described above), the HOM approach is designed for use by civil society. Civil society groups in Nepal and the Netherlands used the tool to develop policy recommendations for their respective governments.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Health Paul Hunt, in collaboration with Gillian MacNaughton of the Essex University Human Rights Center, produced a case study on the right to health in 2006, which included a case study as well as an analysis of the Norad, Rights & Democracy and HOM Health Rights of Women Assessment Instruments.