Can communities and businesses limit human rights infringements by working together? Yes, here’s how

July 21, 2015 Posted by Irit Tamir

Fusing community- and company-led HRIA methodologies, or conducting parallel processes, could enable companies to minimize human rights infringements experienced by local communities.

Should a human-rights impact assessment (HRIA) of a company identify risks of the company or the community? Most HRIAs are designed with one or the other in mind. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

A new Oxfam America report, Community Voice in Human Rights Impact Assessments, discusses these issues and highlights several case studies that demonstrate the lack of meaningful engagement with communities in HRIAs. More importantly, the report explains how incorporating robust community voice into HRIAs can yield positive human rights outcomes and improve a company’s bottom line.

Businesses with projects that impact vulnerable communities are starting to use HRIAs to manage risks, thanks to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. However, as businesses assess the potential impact of their projects, they often fail to meaningfully engage with the very people whose rights they are at risk of violating. Rather, they rely heavily on desk research or interview only government officials and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs). This oversight undermines the very purpose of HRIAs. While governments and international INGOs offer unique perspectives, they are not substitutes for strong community engagement.

Community-led HRIAs, not surprisingly, have a better sense of the impact business investments are having on them. Getting It Right, a community-led HRIA tool created by Canadian non-profit Rights & Democracy and promoted by Oxfam America, considers a community’s human rights concerns first, rather than starting from the company’s perspective. Using this tool, communities can shape a project, mitigate impacts, and outline remedies. But even then, community-led HRIAs have no binding authority and companies can accept or reject findings as they see fit.

Community Voice in Human Rights Impact Assessments suggests a third way may be possible: HRIAs conducted in a jointly managed process or, alternatively, in parallel processes with companies and communities informing one another of their HRIAs. Though implementation challenges remain, fusing community- and company-led HRIA methodologies or conducting parallel processes could enable companies to minimize human rights infringements experienced by local communities, while internalizing the lessons into their organization for use in future operations.

We are realists, just the same. So, even if companies take up a hybrid approach, there will always be projects where those companies refuse to engage communities, acknowledge their impacts, or properly address them. In such instances, the Getting It Right tool will continue to serve communities in their quest for human rights realization.

Author bio

Irit Tamir

Irit Tamir is the Director of Oxfam America's Private Sector Department. In her role, she is focused on working with companies to ensure that their business practices result in positive social and environmental impacts for vulnerable communities throughout the world. She leads a team of advisors that engage the private sector on tax, business and human rights, vaccine equity, legal advocacy, supply chain and labor relations, climate change and gender and racial equity. She oversees the private sector engagement from campaigns and advocacy to collaborations and programs focused on corporate behavior along with a work focused on investors and shareholder advocacy.

Prior to working at Oxfam, Ms. Tamir was the Director of Government Relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, where she successfully lobbied for an extensive federal and state legislative agenda. She co-led the effort to pass the Sudan Divestment Bill in Massachusetts, which required the state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with the Government of Sudan in an effort to halt its human rights violations in Darfur. Ms. Tamir is an attorney with a masters in international law and has taught Business and Human Rights as an adjunct at Boston College Law School. She sits on the Board of the Fair Labor Association and co-chaired the Working Group on Business and Human Rights for the New York City Bar Association. A devoted human rights activist, she has spoken publicly about inequality, human rights, climate resilience, and the food system. Ms. Tamir has had years of experience in government relations and is a former prosecutor who supervised civil rights prosecutions and hate crimes.

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