Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
CEDHA’s work has focused on promoting corporate accountability and greater attention to human rights in circumstances surrounding corporate behavior.
Our Corporate Accountability and Human Rights work has involved the promotion and creation (where necessary) of high impact global policy oriented to ensuring corporate accountability on human rights performance and protection.
We not only work on global corporate policy, such as helping drive and evolve monitoring human rights policy, indicators and systems such as the through the work of the Global Reporting Initiative (which we have greatly assisted), but also with organizations such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is today whose policy we are helping influence. The IFC is a key trend setter for framing corporate conduct in international development finance, which in turn, has very high impacts on the nature and development of different sector industries, such as extractive industries, pulp and paper, etc.
CEDHA is working with civil society and local communities to develop measuring techniques, and monitoring bodies (coalitions of civil society groups) to exert local pressure and provide individual and collective watchdog agents from civil society, helping these better understanding corporate behavior and its impacts on human rights while at the same time, providing for more systematic oversight by corporations at the local level.
Finally, with respect to local communities, CEDHA is helping victims of corporate abuse, channel complaints either to corporations themselves, or to specialized agencies that are entrusted to monitor and work towards (in binding and non-binding forums) better corporate accountability with human rights, social norms, and environmental protection.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Focus of activity
Oversight/Accountability
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1999
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram,
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Absence of Rule of Law
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Build Citizenship
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Name Your Project
Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
Describe Your Idea
CEDHA’s work has focused on promoting corporate accountability and greater attention to human rights in circumstances surrounding corporate behavior.
Our Corporate Accountability and Human Rights work has involved the promotion and creation (where necessary) of high impact global policy oriented to ensuring corporate accountability on human rights performance and protection.
We not only work on global corporate policy, such as helping drive and evolve monitoring human rights policy, indicators and systems such as the through the work of the Global Reporting Initiative (which we have greatly assisted), but also with organizations such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is today whose policy we are helping influence. The IFC is a key trend setter for framing corporate conduct in international development finance, which in turn, has very high impacts on the nature and development of different sector industries, such as extractive industries, pulp and paper, etc.
CEDHA is working with civil society and local communities to develop measuring techniques, and monitoring bodies (coalitions of civil society groups) to exert local pressure and provide individual and collective watchdog agents from civil society, helping these better understanding corporate behavior and its impacts on human rights while at the same time, providing for more systematic oversight by corporations at the local level.
Finally, with respect to local communities, CEDHA is helping victims of corporate abuse, channel complaints either to corporations themselves, or to specialized agencies that are entrusted to monitor and work towards (in binding and non-binding forums) better corporate accountability with human rights, social norms, and environmental protection.
Innovation
Description of initiative
CEDHA’s work has focused on promoting corporate accountability and greater attention to human rights in circumstances surrounding corporate behavior.
Our Corporate Accountability and Human Rights work has involved the promotion and creation (where necessary) of high impact global policy oriented to ensuring corporate accountability on human rights performance and protection.
We not only work on global corporate policy, such as helping drive and evolve monitoring human rights policy, indicators and systems such as the through the work of the Global Reporting Initiative (which we have greatly assisted), but also with organizations such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is today whose policy we are helping influence. The IFC is a key trend setter for framing corporate conduct in international development finance, which in turn, has very high impacts on the nature and development of different sector industries, such as extractive industries, pulp and paper, etc.
CEDHA is working with civil society and local communities to develop measuring techniques, and monitoring bodies (coalitions of civil society groups) to exert local pressure and provide individual and collective watchdog agents from civil society, helping these better understanding corporate behavior and its impacts on human rights while at the same time, providing for more systematic oversight by corporations at the local level.
Finally, with respect to local communities, CEDHA is helping victims of corporate abuse, channel complaints either to corporations themselves, or to specialized agencies that are entrusted to monitor and work towards (in binding and non-binding forums) better corporate accountability with human rights, social norms, and environmental protection.
Innovation
We markedly break from the current Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) debate, by pushing for discussions based on a human rights based framework for understanding corporate behavior. The voluntary realm upheld by most CSR advocates, conduces to review and focus of behavior grounded on corporate good will, and focuses largely on voluntary initiatives that generally promote “corporate strategic philanthropy”. While this is in an of itself important, it does not address the legally bound issues over corporate abuse of the law, human rights, transparency and other social and environmental regulations.
Our focus on Human Rights and corporate complicity of human rights violations forces the consideration of dimensions and impacts of corporate behavior where until recently, most corporations never even considered their relevance and influence.
CEDHA is pushing the UN system since our founding to advance its thinking on human rights and corporations, and today CEDHA is helping lead this discussion providing the UN with a victim’s approach which is largely absent in the discussion, as civil society groups, the UN, States, Academics, and corporations, are still ironing out differences, and defining the areas in which the human rights and corporations debate can move forwards.
In the defense of local victims such as in a controversial pulp mill case on the Argentine-Uruguayan border, we have promoted the compliance of numerous binding and non-binding corporate regulations, stemming from the World Bank’s social and environmental safeguards as well as from voluntary state and corporate frameworks stipulating the limits and central issues surrounding corporate social and environmental responsibility.
Our work is providing communities effective examples on how to seek redress when companies violate the law, and is serving as an example to a great many actors on how such issues of access to justice in the face of corporate abuse, can be worked through.
Delivery Model
Our Corporate Accountability and Human Rights work has many dissemination and access point venues. Specifically these venues are organized by actor and engagement groups. We work both at the policy level and local level, and hence our work must find venues at each of these as well as several intermediary levels (including State, intergovernmental, corporate, civil society group, and community group levels).
We engage international financial institutions like the World Bank, IFC, European Investment Bank and access to justice agencies like the Bank inspection panels, directly, participating either in policy reform processes, meetings convened by these institutions or other events where we might coincide.
We engage corporations through complaints we file against them, or through direct contact to engage in discussions about proposals or opportunities to promote policy reform, such as might be the creation of a complaint mechanism.
We engage civil society organizations and academia, by holding workshops about corporate accountability, international development finance (IDF), or by sending out information that we publish or that we obtain about the specifics of IDF and their relevance to human rights.
Finally, we work with local communities through on the ground discussion in their representation, or in informal advisory assistance we may give them about their cases, concerns or other issues related to their relationship to a specific corporate activity in their area. Some of our work with local communities involves education about their rights and clarification to them about the available channels of redress and access to justice that are available to them at different levels, either at the corporations themselves, before State agencies or before international financial institutions (public or private).
Key Operational Partnerships
We work with an number of organizations on our ongoing general corporate accountability advocacy work, and with a great many specific organizations in case specific advocacy.
Bank Information Center, Amnesty International, RAID, INESCR, OECD Watch, Banktrack, CIEL, Right and Democracy, WEDO, American University, and Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government are just some of the key groups that we have worked with, more recently, in the more general promotion of the corporate accountability and human rights advocacy discussion.
CEDHA helps lead an informal network that it helped solidify, involving many of these groups to promote human rights and access to justice discussions at the World Bank and its various agencies, as well as at other International Finance Institutions. We also work and lead some issues with these groups on policy discussions, and have played a key role in getting such groups to work together to promote innovative discussions and hold international conferences on issues such as Export Credit Agencies and Human Rights compliance.
Local groups with which we have worked to defend victims and disseminate information and harness civil society groups include local human rights groups such as CELS, ADC, and coalitions such as GTONG (a civil society coalition working on World Bank and other IFI advocacy platforms); Human Rights Observatories on trade and multinational corporations that exist in Argentina and in South American generally.
Impact
Financial Model
We work primarily through web-based contacts, publications, actions, and other advocacy work to disseminate our information and knowledge. All of the materials we have produced, including dozens of publications on corporate accountability and human rights, among others, are freely available on our website.
We have also dedicated a good portion of our effort into designing more innovative outreach and communication systems to leverage our work. For example, in one case we have filed against financial actors in Norway, Finland, Netherlands, France and Sweden, we have devoted substantial time to web-based research to uncover and identify the key individuals (corporate, media, public and private) financial actors that are most important to the corporations involved in a controversial investment in South America. By building a substantially large database of contacts (containing several thousand contacts) that the financial actors would be especially concerned about if they received damning information about their involvement in a controversial project, we have been able to leverage substantial influence to get the corporations and financial actors to meet with victims, hear complaints address stakeholders, give answers and provide information about how the corporation or financial actor are addressing the human rights issues concerning local stakeholders.
In terms of our costs and fees. We don not charge ANY fee to local stakeholders, and certainly not to communities we represent. Although we may ask colleagues in the civil society sector from industrialized countries to help finance our participation in international events, or advocacy action before international agencies, corporations, etc.
What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent?
50
How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute?
Advocacy Financing is generally provided by foundation support and accounts generally for about 80% of overall income.
Much or our work costs is salary to cover staff, although substantial travel expenses are also incurred.
For the most part, as our input in policy debates, and in international conferences, is in strong demand, we have been able to cover almost completely the total costs of travel to meetings, advocacy forums, etc. through reimbursement from organizations, agencies, and corporations, that have invited us to speak or to contribute to debate.
In some cases, we have generated small funds for research and writing, although most of our work in this area is covered by staff funding.
Long term funding for advocacy work, particularly legal advocacy work, is VERY difficult to come by. Many foundations refuse to give funding to groups that litigate making such funding even more hard to come by. The fact that probono litigation work in Latin American is nearly non-existent compared to USA based litigation firms, for example, makes private sector financing extremely difficult and with few opportunities to develop.
Beneficiaries, especially local communities, are generally not in a position to finance our work. Corporations and agencies such as the World Bank, who draw heavily from our input, ironically, do not have the habit of paying for such service, and will generally limit their contribution to funding travel, if at all.
Financial sustainability for our work remains one of our greatest barriers and limitations, especially as we do not have great means to hire a development director and hence do not have much left over time to devote to fundraising. The preparation of this proposal even, is time NOT spent on advocacy, which for the sake of local communities and even for the more general cause of promoting the corporate debate on human rights, would be better used otherwise.
Effectiveness
Our work in the promotion of human rights and corporate accountability has proved effective in leveraging a discussion space at a great many institutions. This case, which involves 40,000 legally represented stakeholders and our ongoing work has been very effective in getting institutions like the World Bank, the IFC, States (through mechanisms like the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations), the financial banks that sign the Equator Principles (45 large international financial banks), and the UN System to think through corporate accountability and human rights. Today the most well established and commonly references indicators for corporations, which most cutting edge corporations are using to measure their human rights, social, and environmental impacts, come from GRI, a set of indicators which CEDHA specifically and me personally have been instrumental in getting off the ground (particularly as relates the human rights indicators). Our more local work in Córdoba, where we have worked with local communities on a number of environmental contamination which range from several hundred families affected by local contamination by the water treatment company’s mishandling of effluents and watersupply, or the illegal private development of large contractors that has placed undue pressure sewage capacity of local neighborhoods, or a smaller local community affected by a public corporations illegal and negligent deposit of highly toxic wastes, or a community in Patagonia, abused by non-complied local contracts with private companies to manage waste at the municipal waste dump. In each of these cases, we have had measurable results to have policy changed, leveraged public policy and budgetary assignments to address the problems, successfully involved the judiciary where they had never any experience in getting involved, and have secured rights and protection actions to ensure that the human rights of victims are receiving proper attention and protection.
Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
Perhaps the most noticeable area of change and effectiveness of our corporate responsibility work lies in:
• The large contribution to the establishment of highly visible and utilized human rights indicators (provided through GRI) for corporations to measure and systematically monitor their human rights impacts; this not only generates an exercise of collecting information that was once not collected, but forces the company in question to realize their impacts, develop management system to address them systematically, and ultimately to reduce them;
• The high level impact on policy directions on corporate accountability of institutions like the UN, World Bank, (both international public institutions) and Equator Banks (private financial institutions) to develop thinking on their corporate human rights impacts and begin to create access points for complaints filed against them;
• We have also moved the legislative bar in the European Union on rights of access to information based on corporate complicity in alleged human rights violations, by engaging with the Finnish government and obtaining (the first time ever this was done from outside the EU) environmental information from the State on concerns presented by stakeholders outside the EU;
• Influencing States to begin to discuss corporate complicity of financial institutions with complying with norms such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises;
Number of clients in the last year?
Much of our work is with clients (not in the sense of community stakeholders work) that are policy based agencies.
We also work extensively with communities locally, ranging from a few dozen individuals in one case to several hundred or thousand individuals in local communities in Cordoba, or in Patagonia, for example; some of these include are:
DDT, Nitrates case Cordoba, Pathogenic waste
DDT, Chacras La Merced (access to water),
Cañada Honda (urban planning, water contamination)
Villa Allende (lead pollution),
Uranium Mine Contamination, Rio Ceballos (water contamination),
La Paz (noise pollution).
Community working at Patagonia Waste Dump
Or in Gualeguaychú, where a case involved 40,000 registered stakeholders that formally went with us on several complaints we filed against corporations investing in a controversial pulp mill dispute.
If we examine policy institutions, corporations, coalitions of corporations, States, etc., we can mention several including:
OECD National Contact Points (State foreign relations agencies)
Export Credit Agencies (State financial agencies); Finnvera, CESCE, ICO
International Financial Institutions:
• World Bank
• International Finance Corporation
• Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
• Inter American Development Bank
• European Investment Bank
• IIRSA
Private Banks
• ING Group
• Nordea
• Calyon
• BBVA
• Nordic Investment Bank
• Galicia
What is the potential demand?
Our Project has the potential to grow beyond our present outreach and client base on many fronts, primarily:
• New policy forums at IFIs, private banks, inter-State agencies, etc.
• Academia that has already begun inquiring about our advocacy work as test cases;
• Newly identified communities needing advisory assistance
This growth is only limited by the capacity of the organization to take on new work, as the potential for these to expand as the interested stakeholders (or clients) limitless with respect to the amount of work that could conceivable by done.
Scaling up Strategy
The priority over the coming years is:
• documentation and analysis of recent developments with some of our leading cases;
• deepening of rights based advocacy with IFIs, private financial banks, corporations and States
• continuing of our promotion of human rights and corporate accountability advocacy with the UN system and with other international financial actors
• institutional development to promote new leadership at CEDHA to take over local direction;
• new fundraising efforts and local communities in need, areas of advocacy, etc.
CEDHA needs to capitalize on our recent successful advocacy, learn from it, and publish for the benefit of greater society and as a replicable model for advocacy. We also need to have new persons and staff at CEDHA occupy roles of leadership, to transmit knowledge and knowhow of how to run an organization like CEDHA, as its founders and present staff move on, and need to secure funding to resolve present and future needs.
Stage of the initiative
2
Expansion plan
CEDHA needs to reduce before it expands. This means understand its recent important success, its case work and the magnitude and implications of the international exposure it has received. Due to the success of local advocacy work to promote human rights and environment linkages and defend communities from environmental degradation, one of CEDHA’s founders, Romina Picolotti, won a prestigious prize called the Sophie Prize 2006, given to one environmental advocate yearly for innovative contributions to sustainable development. Picolotti was also recognized nationally and became Argentina’s Environment Minister last year. She subsequently left CEDHA and left behind a legacy of imperious work and measured results on local human rights and environmental advocacy magnified in importance because of her pass through CEDHA. The remaining team has capitalized on this windfall, and has positioned itself as a leader and key thinker on the issues of its focus agenda, locally, nationally and internationally.
Our expansion hence must be measured, and as mentioned previous, may need to more carefully circumscribe over the next few years, those areas where CEDHA has a comparative advantage do to its recently acquired recognition. The Corporate Accountability and Human Rights agenda is one area where this advantage has been proven and its impact needs to be, and can be, deepened.
Origin of the Initiative
The coming together of two individuals (a former World Bank employee turned micro credit officer in rural Cambodia) and Romina Picolotti (a dedicated Human Rights Advocacy which one day addressed a compliant by local indigenous leaders in Nicaragua based on corporate abuse of lumbering rights granted to indigenous leaders);
The creative solutions offered by CEDHA, and Daniel and his team, specifically to difficult access to justice questions facing local communities;
The creative use of interns, volunteers, and young intrepid staff, willing to explore different ways of doing advocacy, not always confined by the limits and barriers presented by established, inefficient and not always open access to justice systems;
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Main Obstacles to Scaling Up
Our biggest challenge this last year has been to manage the extraordinary international impact that our pulp mill case had. This case has received extraordinary media attention, to the point that we had to learn by doing, not always successfully, how to manage the communicational challenges posed.
The fact that Romina Picolotti became the Sophie Prize winner this year, and later Environment Secretary of Argentina, appeared to be a fabulous favorable windfall for the organization, however, it later turned out to be a great strain, as some individuals left the organization to work with her in the ministry, and because of negative media exposure and even from past peers, suggesting that our organization was somehow now coopted by government. This turned out to present a much larger challenge than we ever imagined, and presently we are not trying to figure out, as an organization, how we evolve, who we harness are newly acquired local and international attention, and how we define our future workplan to fully benefit from these changes of events while capitalizing on much of our learned experience over these past two years, for example, since our pulp mill case began.
Main Financial Challenges
Our institucional financing has varied greatly going from a few thousand doallars, and up to 250,000 for a yearly budget. The rapid growth in just 7 years has presented many challenges that have been addressed as they have come up, such as the formalization and auditing of accounting processes which we had not contemplated as necessary in the early years. More recently the rise and fall of financing has ironically accompanies the rising success of our former founder and some of our case advocacy, which we have mentioned.
We are still trying to reorganize our funding needs and future fundraising capacity.
Challenges also lay in the proper management of staff with respect to institutional needs as we grow. This has to do with communication staff, fundraising, accounting and systems. While we have addressed each issue in our own ingrown way, the geater need for more systematized processes that conform to industry standards, is apparent. This contradicts our original idea before starting CEDHA to make CEDHA a cyber-organization with no physical infrastructure.
Main Partnership Challenges
In part the development of two teams, local and international has helped, but it has also alienated the teams from one another, so that not everything that one team leans and develops, necessarily benefits the other. Another barrier has been language, as much of the international work is conducted ONLY in English, while the local work has to take place in Spanish. Many of our complaints in the pulp mill case, for example, are only available in English. This is a GREAT barrier to local groups who could otherwise benefit from the case filings. Lacking funds means being VERY selective as to what documents get translated, which influences in terms of what documents get into training courses with local groups.
Another difficulty has had to do with CEDHA’s willingness to engage with institutions like the World Bank, or mining industry to discuss policy reform. In one case, because we traveled to Germany to criticize mining companies for human rights abuses, but paid by a mining company initiative to study the issue, some groups labeled CEDHA as financed by mining industry, and claimed we had lost legitimacy as an independent civil society organization.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
An Ashoka representative suggested I/we apply.
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 | 261 weeks agoRichard Gottbreht said: Hello, My name is Rich Gottbreht from Global Insights and I am one of the entrants in the competition. Our work centers on helping ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 263 weeks agoPatrick Meagher said: This seems to be a worthwhile activity and one that perhaps expands anticorruption into an area where it is not as frequently pursued – ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 265 weeks agochris macrae said: I am very interested in economic accountability, and sustainability's compound exponentials from a systems mapping perspective as well ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
