In a world where every aspect of life is currently ridden with need to protect the rights of the people against greater powers, Human Rights and their protection in the Business Sector have recently received great attention. Law has a great role to play when it comes to ensuring that the oppressed, in every case, have a voice and a tool to put forth their rights. Wherever and however business operates it has either positive or negative impacts on the communities. However, greater attention is on the negative impacts of companies’ operations on communities, including those that can lead to displacement, pollution from factories and mining projects. Even where a company is not causing damage to the environment, its mere presence can alter the social composition of the local community or create tensions among different groups and lead to displacement of individuals, families or whole communities.1In the wake of major abuses in recent decades, general public has increasingly called for companies to be held to human rights standards. Many corporate executives are coming to realize that ignoring human rights and environmental concerns can have a detrimental effect on their company’s bottom line while causing not only ecological destruction, but also the destruction of human health and lives.
Thus, in June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) approved by consensus the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights prepared by John Ruggie. The guidelines foresee that companies should respect human rights and must address the negative impacts on human rights in which they have some involvement. The report also predicted that the responsibility to respect human rights requires that companies confront these consequences when they do occur. Businesses were provided with operational guidance on the implementation of their responsibility to protect human rights through the principle of corporate respect for human rights2 based on three pillars.
The first pillar concerns the duty of states to protect against human rights abuses committed by third parties, including businesses, by passing laws, appropriate policies, regulation and adjudication so that businesses don’t violate human rights and also ensuring implementation through labour inspection, licensing requirement, investigations, guidance for business. The second pillar is the
corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and the third is the need for greater access by victims of human rights violations to an effective remedy. These guidelines provide a foundation for companies to be accountable for respecting human rights and, consequently, for companies to take steps to ensure that their actions do not lead to human rights violations that could result in
displacement. These guidelines are completely voluntary in nature and are not binding on any state.
Around the same time the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced that the first thematic study of its new Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights would address the issue of business and human rights. The framework is considered the biggest initiative of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the world with more than 7000 companies. Even India was not far behind it has implemented the National Voluntary Guidelines, which incorporated the John Ruggie Guidelines.
The focus of the research article will be the significant problem of how the corporations, industries who are polluting the water and violate the human rights of the various Indigenous communities. They are displaced from their native land by companies for doing business and suffer violation of their Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 as well as in international instruments like in UDHR,
ICCPR, ICESER. These also include the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that specifically recognises the prior informed consent of indigenous peoples is necessary for any project affecting their water resources.3
These guidelines and the above mentioned Declaration are both International Instruments. As a result of the Principle of Dualism followed in the Indian State, it is difficult to ensure the exact implementation of these instruments through the Parent Acts in the country. The article further discusses the ways the violations occur and a few recommendations regarding the Corporate Social
Responsibility Mandate.
