Abstract

The growing reach and impact of business enterprises have given rise to a debate about the roles and responsibilities of such actors with regard to human rights. This became prominent in 2011 with the endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). In the Indian context, post-liberalization in the 1990s, there has been an exponential expansion of the private sector and inroads by multinationals, including a scenario where a large number of welfare roles have been privatized.

Parallel to the UNGPs, in a watershed moment for India, in 2011 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs launched the National Voluntary Guidelines for Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVGs), which contain nine broad principles that guide businesses towards more responsible operations. Subsequently, the regulator for India’s securities markets mandated the top 100 (now 500) listed companies to report on their Environmental, Social and Governance performance. Additionally, in 2013-14, the Indian government introduced a law mandating companies above a financial category to earmark 2 percent of their profits on corporate social responsibility. These developments extend the role of the state as stated in pillar 1 of the UNGPs which focuses on state duty to protect the human rights.

Against this background, the presentation would focus on data against the guiding principle 2 regarding the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. The overall presentation would include the information provided in Business Responsibility reports, and would analyze public disclosures across four domains – policy commitments to Human rights; and within that, specifically, on (a) Workers well being and non-discrimination, (b) Supply Chain and (c) affected communities; and (d) CSR beneficiary communities. The presentation would also derive analyses from the India Responsible Business Index, which uses the framework of National Voluntary Guidelines.

Bio-sketch of the speaker

Mr. Dheeraj Kumar Singh has around 10 years of experience in the realm of community mobilisation, community institution building, participatory monitoring and evaluation and decentralised micro-planning. He has directly engaged with communities in the area of gender equality, sustainable livelihoods and realisation and access to rights and entitlements. He has the experience of mobilising women from tribal communities in Central India leading to a formation of a collective of around 5000 women. For the last five years he has been researching on disclosures and policy commitments of top 100 listed companies in India with a particular focus on inclusion in work space as well as the supply chains. He is the Co-Principal Researcher of India Responsible Business Index. He has also led processes for conducting human rights due diligence study with particular focus on agricultural Supply Chains.