Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T06:09:18.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mind the Governance Gaps: Harmful Corporate Strategies Leading to Avoidance of Responsibility and Civil Society Counter-Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2023

Katharine Booth Open the ORCID record for Katharine Booth [Opens in a new window]
Katharine Booth*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar – SOMO, The Netherlands
*
Email: k.booth@somo.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ‘Mind the Gap’ project has created a toolkit for civil society to hold companies to account for their adverse impacts. The toolkit sets out two distinct but interlinked frameworks: harmful corporate strategies resulting in the avoidance of responsibility for adverse impacts, and civil society counter-strategies to overcome these harmful strategies. Both frameworks capture the unique experiences of the Mind the Gap project’s global consortium partners and civil society actors focused on corporate accountability. The project responds to a need to close governance gaps that arise in the context of the current global economic system. It is only by identifying and understanding harmful corporate strategies that civil society can effectively advocate for corporate accountability and the closure of governance gaps.

Keywords

civil societycorporate accountabilitygovernance gapsremedy
Type
Developments in the Field
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Beyond human rights due diligence: What else do we need? , June 2023 , pp. 284 - 291
Copyright
© The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 General Assembly, ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights: Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie’, A/HRC/8/5 (7 April 2008), para 3.

2 Mind the Gap, ‘Governance Gaps’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/governance-gaps/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Mind the Gap project partners are: ACIDH (DRC), Afrewatch (DRC), Al-Haq (occupied Palestinian territories), Cividep (India), Conectas (Brazil), ECCJ (Belgium), Inkrispena (Indonesia), Poder (Mexico), PremiCongo (DRC), SOMO (Netherlands) and SRI (China). Mind the Gap, ‘Mind the Gap Consortium’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/about-us/consortium/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

6 General Assembly, ‘Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises’, A/72/162 (18 July 2017).

7 Mind the Gap, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/about-us/methodology/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

8 Mind the Gap, ‘Defining a “Harmful Strategy”’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/about-us/methodology/defining-a-harmful-strategy/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

9 Mind the Gap, ‘Harmful Strategies’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

10 Mind the Gap, ‘Constructing Deniability’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/constructing-deniability/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

11 See generally, ACIDH, Afrewatch and PremiCongo, ‘Les stratégies utilisées par l’entreprise Ruashi Mining pour éviter d’assumer ses responsabilités dans les cas de violations des droits humains’, November 2021, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/strategies-used-by-ruashi-mining-to-avoid-responsibility-for-human-rights-violations/ (accessed 19 April 2023); Martje Theuws, ‘Indecent Work and Hidden Supply Chains’, December 2022, https://www.somo.nl/indecent-work-and-hidden-supply-chains/ (accessed 19 April 2023); Joseph Wilde-Ramsing et al, ‘Responsible Disengagement from Coal as part of a Just Transition’, June 2021, https://www.somo.nl/responsible-disengagement-from-coal-as-part-of-a-just-transition/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

12 Mind the Gap, ‘Avoiding Liability Through Judicial Strategies’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/avoiding-liability-through-judicial-strategies/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

13 Amnesty International, ‘Injustice Incorporated: Corporate Abuses and the Human Right to Remedy’, 2014, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol30/001/2014/en/ (accessed 19 April 2023); Gwynne Skinner, Robert McCorquodale and Olivier De Schutter, ‘The Third Pillar: Access to Judicial Remedies for Human Rights Violations by Transnational Business’, December 2013, https://corporatejustice.org/publications/the-third-pillar-access-to-judicial-remedies-for-human-rights-violations-by-transnational-business/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

14 Roeline Knottnerus et al, 50 jaar ISDS. Een mondiaal machtsmiddel voor multinationals gecreëerd en groot gemaakt door Nederland, 13 January 2018, https://www.somo.nl/50-years-of-isds/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

15 Mind the Gap, ‘Distracting and Obfuscating Stakeholders’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/distracting-obfuscating-stakeholders/ (accessed 19 April 2023). See generally, ACIDH, Afrewatch and PremiCongo, note 11; Brock, Andrea and Dunlap, Alexander, ‘Normalising Corporate Counterinsurgency: Engineering Consent, Managing Resistance and Greening Destruction Around the Hambach Coal Mine and Beyond’ (2018) 62 Political Geography, 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dunlap, Alexander, ‘“A Bureaucratic Trap:” Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and Wind Energy Development in Juchitán, Mexico’ (2018) 29:4 Capitalism Nature Socialism 88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geenen, Sara and Verweijen, Judith, ‘Explaining Fragmented and Fluid Mobilization in Gold Mining Concessions in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’ (2017) 4 The Extractives Industries and Society 758 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraemer, Romy, Whiteman, Gail and Banerjee, Bobby, ‘Conflict and Astroturfing in Niyamgiri: The Importance of National Advocacy Networks in Anti-Corporate Social Movements’ (2013) 34:5–6 Organization Studies 823 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schilling-Vacaflor, Almut, ‘If the Company Belongs to You, How Can You Be Against It?’ Limiting Participation and Taming Dissent in Neo-Extractivist Bolivia (2017) 44:3 The Journal of Peasant Studies 658 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Faruque, M Omar, ‘The Politics of Extractive Industry Corporate Practices: An Anatomy of a Company-Community Conflict in Bangladesh’ (2018) 5:1 The Extractive Industries and Society 177 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Mind the Gap, ‘Undermining Defenders and Communities’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/undermining-defenders-communities/ (accessed 19 April 2023). Y Wasi Gedepuraka, ‘Mining for a Nickel and a Dime: How Worker Rights are Undermined at IMIP’, November 2022, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/mining-for-a-nickel-and-a-dime/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

17 Mind the Gap, ‘Utilising State Power’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/harmful-strategies/utilising-state-power/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

18 See generally, Wasi Gedepuraka, note 16; Brock and Dunlap, note 15; Dunlap, note 15; Ganson, Brian and Wennmann, Achim, ‘Predatory Companies in Fragile States’ (2015) 55 Adelphi Series 457–458 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Friends of the Earth Europe and European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), Off the Hook? How Business Lobbies Against Liability for Human Rights and Environmental Abuses, June 2023, https://corporatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/OffThe-Hook.pdf (accessed 19 April 2023).

19 Mind the Gap, ‘Counter-Strategies’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

20 Mind the Gap, ‘Dismantling Corporate Narratives’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/dismantling-corporate-narratives/ (accessed 19 April 2022).

21 Reframing the issue can be useful when a company associated with an adverse impact has irresponsibly disengaged from its operations or business relationships. See generally, SOMO, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go? Exploring the Role of Disengagement in Human Rights Due Diligence’, https://www.somo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Should-I-stay-or-should-I-go-4.pdf (accessed 19 April 2022).

22 Mind the Gap, ‘Shifting the Power Balance’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/shifting-the-power-balance/ (accessed 31 March 2022). See generally, FIDH, ‘Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Abuses’, https://corporateaccountability.fidh.org/ (accessed 19 April 2023); Palpacuer, Florence, ‘Global Value Chains as Sites of Contestation: The Role of GVC-Based Campaign Networks’ in Ponte, Stefano, Gereffi, Gary and Raj-Reichert, Gale (eds.), Handbook on Global Value Chains (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 199 Google Scholar; Hall, Ruth et al, ‘Resistance, Acquiescence or Incorporation? An Introduction to Land Grabbing and Political Reactions “From Below”’ (2015) 42:3–4 The Journal of Peasant Studies 467 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraemer, Romy, Whiteman, Gail and Banerjee, Bobby, ‘Conflict and Astroturfing in Niyamgiri: The Importance of National Advocacy Networks in Anti-Corporate Social Movements’ (2013) 34:5–6 Organization Studies 823 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Avci, Duygu and Fernández-Salvadora, Consuelo, ‘Territorial Dynamics and Local Resistance: Two Mining Conflicts in Ecuador Compared’ (2016) 3 The Extractive Industries and Society 912 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 O’Rourke, Anastasia, ‘A New Politics of Engagement: Shareholder Activism for Corporate Social Responsibility’ (2003) 12:4 Business Strategy and the Environment 227 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Mind the Gap, ‘Deploying Legal Counter Strategies’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/deploying-legal-counter-strategies/ (accessed 19 April 2022).

25 ECCJ, ‘Suing Goliath: An Analysis of Civil Cases Against EU Companies for Overseas Human Rights and Environmental Abuses’, 28 September 2021, https://corporatejustice.org/publications/suing-goliath/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

26 Protect the Protest, https://protecttheprotest.org/ (accessed 19 April 2023); Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), https://www.the-case.eu/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

27 Meeran, Richard and Meeran, Jahan (eds.), Human Rights Litigation against Multinationals in Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ECCJ, note 25.

28 Mind the Gap, ‘Expanding and Amplifying Community Activism’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/shifting-the-power-balance/expanding-and-amplifying-community-activism/ (accessed 19 April 2023).

29 Mind the Gap, ‘Advancing Corporate Accountability Standards’, https://www.mindthegap.ngo/counter-strategies/advancing-corporate-accountability-standards/ (accessed 19 April 2023). Over 160 civil society organizations support the Justice is Everybody’s Business campaign, which calls on the European Union to adopt strong legislation on human rights and environmental due diligence by companies: Justice is Everybody’s Business, https://justice-business.org/our-demands/ (accessed 19 April 2023). See generally, European Commission, Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, Lise Smit et al, Study on Due Diligence Requirements Through the Supply Chain (Publications Office, 2020), part V; Robert McCorquodale and Justine Nolan, ‘The Effectiveness of Human Rights Due Diligence for Preventing Business Human Rights Abuses’ (2021) 68 Netherlands International Law Review 455.

30 See generally, Corporate Reform Collective, Fighting Corporate Abuse: Beyond Predatory Capitalism (Pluto Press, 2014), part II; McGaughey, Fiona et al, Corporate Responses to Tackling Modern Slavery: A Comparative Analysis of Australia, France and the United Kingdom (2022) 7:2 Business and Human Rights Journal 249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.