1. Mapping the State-based system for the remedy of business-related human rights violations in Belgium
FIDO Project 06/ /2017
Director: Prof. Wouter Vandenhole
Researcher: Liliana Lizarazo-Rodriguez
Breakout session: 5 years of the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights
UN Day Flanders, Flemish Parliament, Brussels

2. Scope Implementation of Principles 26 and 27 of the UNGP
To ensure the effectiveness of domestic judicial mechanisms when addressing business-related human rights abuses;
To consider ways to reduce barriers that could lead to a denial of access to remedy;
To provide effective non-judicial grievance mechanisms.
Complexity of the implementation:
Business can affect human rights of:
employees, customers, consumers and communities around their operations
Extra-territorial challenge:
Activities realized in their home state or in states where their supply chains operate.

3. Scope of remedy for adverse human rights impacts
Which Kind of remedies?
Prevention of harm => injunctions or guarantees of non-repetition.
Mitigation: actions to reduce the likelihood of an adverse impact occurring, e.g.: restitution, rehabilitation
Financial or non-financial compensation,
Punitive sanctions or fines: criminal or administrative.
Salient human rights for a business enterprise:
HR that could be most at risk => economic sector.
Primary efforts towards most salient rights but without ignoring other less visible human rights risks.
Effectiveness of remedy mechanisms => the kind of economic sector:
Business of SME: Labor protection – ILO Core Conventions
Belgian MNE: e.g. Pharmaceuticals
EPF: GP on promoting Good Governance in the Pharmaceutical Sector.
2008 HR GP for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines (P. HUNT UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health)

4. Judicial Remedies? Some nuances
Judicial process
Criminal Labor administrative civil
Liability
Corporation/ Board of Directors/Managers State/Civil Officer
If Supply chain? => Parental company If State-owned enterprise?
Subsidiary (control?) Branch Contracts Public proc. and tenders
If Belgium fails to comply with its duties to respect, protect, and fulfil?
European Court of HR European Court of Justice
ECHR EU Treaties, EU Charter FR, EU Law (e.g. prel. ruling)

5. Best Practices of Business: positive evidence in case of a judicial procedure.
HRDD - HRIA
Social responsibility (ISO 26000)
accountability, transparency, ethical behavior, stakeholder interests, rule of law, international norms of behavior, and human rights.
Environmental management (ISO 14000)
GRI: Sustainability reporting Standards:
Economic, Environmental and Social (Labor c., HR, Soc and prod. Resp.)
Directive 2013/34/EU: disclosure of non-financial and diversity inf.
Large public-interest entities : listed companies, banks, insurance,
500 employees
environmental matters, social and employee aspects, HR respect, anticorruption and bribery, diversity (BoD)
= > See E.G Corporate Responsibility : Barometer for Belgium

6. Responsive Regulation (Ayres and Braithwaite’s 1992)
Regulatory enforcement: Persuasion instead of sanction (Baldwin and Black 2007)
At the level of the UN
UN GP on Business and Human Rights (2011)
UN GP on HRIA of Trade and Investment Agreements (2011)
UN GP Principles for Responsible Contracts: HR Risks in State-Investor Contracts (2011)
GC 16 CRC : State obligations on the impact of business on children’s rights. (2013)
UN HRC Report: Improving accountability and access to remedy for victims of business-related human rights abuse (2016)
At the level of the Council of Europe
Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)3 on HR and Business
At the level of the EU
EU Commission: Recommendation on injunctive and compensatory
collective redress mechanisms concerning violations of rights granted
under EU law (2013)
EU Strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Second Action Plan on HR and Democracy of 2015.