LCHR Statement to the UN on Working Methods and Activities of Transnational Corporations

July 31, 2024

Increasingly, abuses of workers fundamental rights are a global phenomenon. Child labor, forced labor, discrimination and violations of workplace health and safety standards are widespread, serious and systematic. The Lawyers Committee is committed to protecting the rights of workers recognized by international labor rights standards and believes the further development and subsequent implementation of the Draft Universal Human Rights Guidelines for Companies will be a key tool in advocating reform.

The accountability of non-state actors is one of the most important frontiers of human rights protection. In this era of growing free trade, private corporations have gained increasing control over global, national and local economic policies. Workers, producing goods for the global market, drive the new international economy. Yet millions of people - the great majority of whom are young women - daily endure substandard working conditions. Workers are routinely subjected to twelve-hour working days, often six or seven days a week. Bathroom breaks are restricted and regulated, and travel beyond the factory’s fences is often strictly limited. Exposure to toxic chemicals, some carcinogenic, is one of the most frightening issues facing these workers.

Until recently, almost all global manufacturers took the view that they bore no responsibility for the conduct of their suppliers or contractors whose factories are often located in the developing world, particularly in Asia and Central America. Gradually, this is changing in some sectors (particularly apparel and footwear), and today more than one hundred major manufacturers have such codes. But without a system of enforcement, the codes offer little real protection to the tens of millions of workers who regularly endure workplace abuses. There is an urgent need for the development of practical implementation mechanisms and for both state and non-state actors to assume enforcement responsibilities.

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights is convinced that a variety of stakeholders need to be engaged to address these issues. Consumers, local and international human rights organizations, labor unions, governments and international agencies, all have a role to play in ensuring that corporations are held accountable for enabling workers to assert and enforce their fundamental rights. We believe that the activities of the Working Group in further refining the guidelines is a key step leading to the longer term development of binding standards on corporations.

1. An extension of the mandate of the Working Group for a further three years during which time the current Draft Universal Human Rights Guidelines for Companies and any associated papers (such as those drafted by Prof. David Weissbrodt) should be distributed broadly to governments, international agencies, NGOs, unions and corporations for comment. Accordingly, a timetable should be established to allow these comments to be received, considered and incorporated into a new draft version of the Guidelines by the 2002 session of the Working Group.

2. The Working Group should be encouraged to focus further on the process for implementing the Guidelines, in particular developing practical methods of verification to ensure that the Guidelines when adopted by companies and others are indeed implemented. Two suggested areas for further research include:
   1. An examination of methods used by NGOs and worker representative organizations to independently monitor implementation; and
      
   2. The creation of a forum within the U.N system that would provide a structure for information to be received from all stakeholders regarding the activities of corporations and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights.
      
      
3. Subsequent papers prepared and associated with the Draft Guidelines should be formally requested by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

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