Context

Human Rights
Context lunch - March 2002.

Our guests:
Geoffrey Chandler - Human Rights campaigner, formerly with Amnesty International.
Mandy Cormack - Unilever
Charlotte Grezo - Vodafone
John Groom - Anglo American
Julia King - GlaxoSmithKline
Chris Major - BP
Anton Mifsud-Bonnici - BP
Peter Natkanski - Syngenta

Human rights was the theme of our second lunch in the year.

Geoffrey Chandler began the discussion by outlining the historical context. Moral parameters change over time, but the corporate sector has been slow to take on responsibility for ethical issues, he argued. Business opposed the abolition of slavery and the end of child labour. The ethical agenda has evolved to take in environmental issues, and today the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes parameters for social responsibility.

But business is still reluctant to respond to the concerns of society. In the corporate world, human rights is seen as a reputational issue. Society's opinions are reflected by NGOs, which put pressure on companies to change. "Every advance except those taken in the interest of shareholders has been forced on companies from outside," he said.

Unsurprisingly, this take on businesses‚ lack of responsibility was passionately disputed. One of our guests made the case for the innovative role companies had played in improving CSR, pointing to a strong tradition of this, with some notable examples from the Victorian era. Legislation provides the baseline, but there are many business managers who are committed to driving improvement. In building a business, you must establish trust, and this means you have to have good practices in place. Often managers are trying to deliver in countries where human rights are not recognised, especially when there is conflict in that country.

This raised the question of boycott versus engagement - is it better for a company to steer clear of countries where human rights abuses occur, or should business engage?

Sir Geoffrey replied that Amnesty International advocates engagement - as long as the company knows what it is letting itself in for and is prepared. It must have policies in place which can guide its actions - policies also offer some protection against criticism. He cited BP and Shell's experiences in Columbia and Nigeria, suggesting that their reputations would have been less vulnerable to attack if they had had relevant policies in place at the time.

He said that business has a responsibility to the communities it impacts on. Companies also need to be aware of, and accept some responsibility for, the potential impacts of revenues they provide to governments. For example, payments from oil companies for exploration rights in Angola funded the government‚s arms purchases for Angola's civil war, with its accompanying human rights abuses. Sir Geoffrey said: "The minimum corporate defence in similar situations is to disclose."

One company representative, however, suggested companies were expected to take on too much responsibility. When companies become the arbiter of what benefits the community, they are taking on a role that belongs with government, and such responsibility is inappropriately allocated.

There was some discussion about the dilemmas faced by business and concern about introducing a moral dimension into simple, daily, economic transactions. If a company sells a product in a form that is affordable in poorer countries, for example shampoo in sachets, is it responding to a want, or being exploitative? Opinion around the table was divided.

The difficulties of pricing products was also discussed. This issue is of particular concern to pharmaceutical companies, whose products can improve or save lives, especially when they have a unique product and can set the price themselves, or in making decisions about supplying cheaper drugs to developing countries.

Sir Geoffrey however, did not seem to have much sympathy with the pharmaceutical industry's angst. However, he added that companies operate in a context of economic and social injustice, human rights violations and environmental degradation - companies both help and harm. Companies can create benefits, including economic rights. It is only in the last 10 years that the potential for companies to influence change has been realised.

One suggestion from business on how to deal with dilemmas constructively was to engage NGOs in the process. The nature of leadership was also discussed. One guest suggested that managers often prefer to let their actions speak locally, rather publicly take to the soap-box. He argued that there is a danger in assuming that just because a policy exists it is automatically implemented. Too often the fact that there is a policy allows complacent managers to believe the problem has been tackled. Often things work the other way round - it is best practice that generates policy.

Sir Geoffrey summed up, emphasising the need for business to take a different perspective. The market is a potent means for change, he said. Money can only report on the short term. We need disclosure of economic, social and environmental reporting, but companies are opposing such reporting, he said. Companies have a global responsibility, and are incomplete if they have no policies on human rights.

But at the end of the day, important though policy is, is it just window dressing? "CSR makes palatable the unpalatable,"stated Sir Geoffrey, "It doesn‚t affect the companies‚ core business".

[Please make contact if you would like to join us for lunch].