2018 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights

Interpretation is provided in English and Chinese.

Session led by UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and UNDP

This Forum session is part of the Forum track on trends and challenges in promoting business respect for human rights in different regions of the world.
The aim is to facilitate peer learning and multi-stakeholder dialogue around lessons learned. Innovative ideas shall be showcased with a view to scale up emerging good practices and reinforce a race to the top among governments and businesses in the Asia region.

This interactive session will be divided in two parts:
After a brief scene setting from civil society and business representatives, Part I will present key examples of how Governments in the Region are promoting business respect for Human Rights. Representatives of the Governments of Thailand, India, Indonesia, Vietnam among others, will illustrate how they are setting expectations for companies to carry out human rights due diligence (HRDD), changing corporate laws to promote responsible business conduct, creating incentives through public procurement, and taking steps to ensure a bouquet of remedies is available to victims.
In Part II, several inspiring ideas on how to turn HRDD from paper to practice will be presented in TED-Style snapshot sessions. After interaction with the participants, mobile technology will be used to survey the opinion of those present. This will involve solutions considered most innovative, most impactful and worth replicating in other contexts. Initiatives most inspiring and innovative will be given additional dedicated space to illustrate their impact in the two Regional Forums on Business and Human Rights (for South Asia and Southeast Asia) planned for the first half of 2019.  

Program

• Opening/setting the scene (30 mins)
• Part I: Fostering Government Leadership to Set Expectations for Companies to Respect Human Rights (60 mins)
• Break (15 mins)
• Part II:  Pitch Deck: Innovative and Inspiring Solutions to take the UNGPs from Paper to Practice: Snapshot sessions (5 minutes each) followed by Qs and As (80 minutes) through mobile technology to survey their opinion on the innovative value, replicability and scalability of the initiatives 
  • Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact: FPIC Policies into action
  • Caux RT/ANA: Technology to monitor supply chains, Japan  
  • UN Global Compact Network Indonesia: HRDD in the Agri-Food Business Sector
  • Terre des Hommes: Multi stakeholder partnerships to end child labour
  • China Labor Watch: Access to Remedy for workers, China
  • Earth Rights International: NGOs and NHRIs monitoring HR abuses by outbound investments, SEA
  • University of Sussex: National employment injury insurance (EII) schemes in Bangladesh and Pakistan
  • FORUM ASIA: Good practices and possible collective actions to counter legal harassment of Human Rights Defenders