There are no rights without remedies. Remedy is the feature of the third pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs Principles 25-31). States have duties to provide judicial remedies, and businesses have responsibilities to establish non-judicial remedial mechanisms at the operational level. Companies participating in multi-stakeholder initiatives (“MSIs”) or industry associations with human rights standards also are often required to make human rights grievance mechanisms available.
NomoGaia has researched non-governmental MSI complaint mechanisms through empirical, multi-year studies that encompass public reporting and first-person interviews.
We have interviewed the people operating the mechanisms as well as hundreds of claimants (individuals, community members, labor unions, NGOs) to get the critical rightsholder perspective of whether, to what extent, how and when, these systems succeed or fail to provide effective remedies.
By investigating what makes them function well and what blocks access to remedy, we have developed recommendations on how systems should, and should not, be structured.
Methodology and Data: “Initial Report”
A detailed description of how we identified MSI grievance mechanisms for analysis, how we gathered and analyzed case studies, and how we triangulated these reports with primary data, the Initial Report functions as an introduction to the further research we have pursued.
MSI Systems Database
A compilation of all the complaints reviewed, sorted and coded, is available through the Excel sheet accessible here.
If the button does not work, copy-paste the following URL into your browser: http://nomogaia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/MSI_Compliation-Final-September-2022.zip.
RSPO: GMs where members respond to complaints
Where member companies of voluntary initiatives receive complaints of human rights violations, there is no meaningful leverage within the MSI to drive change. These companies may leave the MSI without consequence or may ignore the MSI grievance mechanism’s findings, and neither the MSI nor the affected rightsholder has recourse. Read more at the link below.
Comparing MSIs: Remedies for Labor Abuses
MSI grievance mechanisms sometimes work! Not in all contexts or for all claims, but rightsholders have received meaningful remedies when grievance mechanisms are structured so that powerful brands join MSIs and respond to complaints made against their suppliers. There is a real opportunity to expand and improve these systems. They should be rolled out in other industries (currently they only operate in the garment sector). They need higher resourcing and deeper reach into supply chains. Read more at the link below.
Recommendations
In compiling and analyzing data from every MSI grievance publicly available, NomoGaia established Recommendations for Human Rights Grievance Mechanisms. These are available below.
