Global Compact International Yearbook 2012

Agenda
CSR in Latin America
societies and the mass media, it has made great progress in
shaping the global debate on a norm-based corporate regulation.
However, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
have been more influential in Latin America, given that they
provide an instrument of accountability that has been used
by claimants seeking to redress corporate abuses.
Private-led initiatives for corporate social responsibility have
been another vehicle used to open up the discussion of human
rights responsibility within the business community. In the
late 1990s, human rights responsibilities did not feature in
the agendas and language of most companies. The UN Global
Compact process has contributed toward mobilizing this
agenda, as well as toward systematizing and consolidating the
panoply of voluntary initiatives publicized as corporate social
responsibility. It has recently sets itself the goal of generating
the expectation that adherent companies need to publicly
demonstrate compliance and transparency with the Global
Compact Principles. The development of a Communication
on Progress mechanism and the incorporation of the Global
Reporting Initiative’s reporting guidelines along standardized
performance indicators are steps in that direction.
Notwithstanding the relative merit of such initiatives in
creating conditions for greater corporate accountability with
human rights, compliance remains a great challenge. Extractive
industries are increasingly becoming the main source of
socio-environmental conflicts throughout Latin America, as
related to corporate complicity in human rights abuses. In the
mining sector alone, there are presently 161 conflicts that affect
212 local communities in relation to 172 mining projects
and 254 companies. During 2009 anti-mining activists were
tortured and assassinated in Mexico and El Salvador, allegedly
with the complicity of the Canadian companies Blackfire
Resources and Pacific Rim. Moreover, there are issues relating
to corporate complicity in the agriculture industry such as
negative health impacts, environmental damage resulting
from the use of pesticides, illegal land acquisition, and forced
evictions of local populations.
This has led many civil society advocacy groups to engage with
the corporate responsibility agenda as a means toward opening
up a broader public debate about the policy, regulatory, and
socioeconomic implications for human rights and development,
as related to the increasing influence of transnational
corporations in all spheres of society. Among the most visible
initiatives, there is the regional mobilization of victims of
corporate-related abuse within the organization of public
opinion tribunals, such as the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunals
on Neoliberal Policies and Transnational Corporations in Latin
America, which were held in Peru in 2008.
The field of corporate accountability with human rights is
leading to the intersection of state-, company-, and civil society
responses across different institutional settings in ways that
suggest possibilities for constructive synergism. Transnational
civil society advocates use OECD National Contact Points to
bring about pressure for changes in corporate conduct regarding
human rights in line with OECD Guidelines. Accountability
synergism increases when states introduce policy reforms and
judicial actions that support civil society initiatives in home
and host countries.
The company Nidera in Argentina exemplifies this. It was
accused in 2011 of human rights abuses against temporary
workers at its corn-processing operation facilities in Argentina.
Investigative reports were commissioned by the Argentine
government. The information gathered helped support legal
actions in national and provincial courts and a complaint was
filed by Argentine and Dutch NGOs at the Netherlands’ OECD
National Contact Point. At the same time, the Argentine government
promoted a change of the national legislation that
regulates temporary rural employment to prevent unregistered
and unprotected work. It also centralized the recruitment of
rural work within the Ministry of Labor, in light of the alleged
complicity of the subcontracted recruitment companies that
provided services to Nidera. With such policy changes as a
background, the OECD Guidelines facilitated a constructive
space of negotiation between the complainant NGOs and Nidera.
An agreement was reached in 2012, in which Nidera committed
to strengthening its human rights policy, to formalizing
human rights due diligence procedures for temporary rural
workers, and to allowing NGOs to monitor its operations in
Argentina. Private and public engagements at the national
and international levels worked as complementary leverages
to increase corporate accountability.
Constructive synergies of state and civil society engagements
can also be seen in transnational litigation. In 2012 the Colombian
trade union Sinaltrainal and the European Center for
Constitutional and Human Rights filed criminal charges against
Nestlé and members of its senior management through the
Swiss public prosecution. They are accused of complicity in the
murder of a trade unionist committed by paramilitary forces
in Colombia in 2005. Similarly, the companies Drummond and
Chiquita face trials in US courts – they were accused under
the Alien Torts Claim Act for complicity in the assassinations
of trade unionists in Colombia. Non-legal opinion tribunals
organized by civil society groups in Latin America compiled
accusatory information that later had probative value in the
legal courts. In 2011 a US court accepted the compensation
claim against DaimlerChrysler AG filed by torture survivors
and 22 relatives of Argentinean trade unionists who disappeared
during the last military dictatorship (1976–1983). The
company was accused of complicity in human rights violations
and state terrorism. These cases illustrate the application of
an extraterritoriality principle with respect to legal corporate
responsibilities with respect to human rights in overseas
operations and the role of civil society advocacy in bringing
these companies to justice.
These are illustrative examples of the ways in which the
agenda of corporate responsibility with human rights is being
shaped by the intersection of public and private actors vis-à-vis
instances of corporate abuse in Latin America. It suggests a
growing synergy between different international instruments
as well as national judicial and policy opportunities. Stimulating
such synergies is one avenue toward moving ahead with
the accountability agenda. Likewise, the improvement of due
diligence and reporting processes – in addition to third-party
monitoring – is an opportunity for the private sector to bolster
the transparency and adequacy of their commitments to
respect human rights. Legislative reforms that make corporate
disclosure and reporting mandatory can help companies that
seriously commit to genuine actions to differentiate themselves
from others. The fact that actors engage with multiple
institutional and normative spaces with a narrative of business
complicity with human rights is a recent and promising
development. These spaces open up opportunities that are
valuable, but ultimately the determinant is who uses them,
how, and for what purpose.
Dr. Marcelo Saguier is an Associate
Professor of International Relations at
the School of Latin American Social
Sciences (FLACSO) in Buenos Aires. He
is also a Research Fellow at Argentina’s
National Scientific and Technical
Research Council (CONICET).
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