The report, Making Human Rights Due Diligence Frameworks Work for Small Farmers and Workers – commissioned by the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) with Brot für die Welt, and written by the University of Greenwich’s Natural Resources Institute, is based in part on research shared by The Circle.
The report explores how human rights due diligence (HRDD), can have a positive impact on small farmers and workers in the agriculture and textile sector and on how fair purchasing practices, living wages and living incomes can be addressed by HRDD frameworks and instruments. It concludes with recommendations for future legislative frameworks.
Human rights due diligence is defined by the UN Guiding Principles as, “An ongoing risk management process… in order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how [a company] addresses its adverse human rights impacts.” This is currently, predominantly, a voluntary process that businesses undertake and as such there is little legal recourse for abuses found in global supply chains. This has led some critics to view current processes as little more than a bureaucratic tick-boxing exercise.
However, this trend seems to be changing, with some countries introducing laws that include legal sanctions (such as France’s Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law) and a commitment by Justice Didier Reynders at the EU Commission to introduce mandatory – cross-sectorial – due diligence laws for businesses in 2021.
This report is an important contribution to future debates on HRDD – the issue of implementation and on the ground impact on the lives of workers needs to be built in to any new legislation from the very beginning in order to make it effective.
In particular we welcome the report’s emphasis on the explicit inclusion of living wages and living incomes within due diligence frameworks as, “…fundamental to respecting internationally recognised human rights – either as rights themselves or as preconditions for other priority rights…”
As noted in the report, “…existing laws and regulations are not sufficient to ensure living wages, living incomes or fair trading practices in international supply chains … HRDD frameworks do not, at present, guarantee that insufficient wages or incomes will be covered and adequately addressed by such frameworks … HRDD frameworks need to make explicit reference to trading practices and systemic issues… in particular… living wages and living incomes throughout the supply chain.” (p.33)
International wage setting is often avoided in policy discussions, as it is seen as too complex an area to legislate. However, we strongly agree with the report that living wages are a right in themselves and a precondition for other priority rights – and therefore must be explicitly included in any future mandatory due diligence legislation.
Read the full report on FTAO’s website
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