The following is an adaption from the Follow the Money website, which is in turn an adaptation of that organization’s work with Inclusive Development International. A detailed acknowledgement of the work is available here.

Section 1: Collecting Evidence

In this section, you will learn how to document local impacts and analyze whether the project has complied with certain standards, including international human rights standards, the environmental and social policies of development finance institutions, or industry standards. You will also learn how to organize and present the information to use in evidence-based advocacy.

Why collect evidence?

Recording and documenting the experience of the community you are supporting is crucial to successful advocacy. Collecting evidence and accurately reporting the harms that have occurred or are anticipated, and compliance with relevant standards, is important for several reasons:

• It helps ensure that the voices and experiences of the community are at the center of your advocacy.
• The process of explaining and discussing a community’s experience can help it become more organized and think through all of the impacts of the project, both good and bad.
• This can help community members clearly articulate the problems they face and the solutions they seek.
• It gives credibility to your advocacy and ensures that your claims are neither exaggerated nor understated.
• It strengthens your advocacy by showing precisely how laws, policies, standards or codes of conduct have been breached.
• It can form the basis of mediations or negotiations with responsible actors and an agreement for providing remedies and/or altering the project in a way that avoids harms and provides benefits to the community.

Collecting evidence involves gathering primary information directly from affected communities and other sources about the effects of the project on people and the environment. This information is typically presented in a report that includes a description of the project and the affected communities, the results of the research, and an assessment of whether human rights, laws or other applicable standards have been respected or violated. Reports that find shortcomings or violations usually end with a set of recommendations for the responsible actors to provide compensation and/or to change the design of the project.

Step 1:

Identify the main issues and impacts on the ground

To begin, conduct some preliminary scoping to identify the main impacts of the project. This initial scoping is necessary to design an appropriate assessment framework. This framework will help you design the data collection tools you will use when speaking to local communities and/or their representatives.

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Step 2:

Develop an assessment framework

The next step is to develop an assessment framework to help you understand whether the project has complied with relevant standards. The framework will guide you in designing your questionnaires, structuring your report, and analyzing whether the project has breached the commitments and obligations of actors along the investment chain.

Many organizations choose to conduct human rights impact assessments because human rights standards are universal, bind governments, and are relevant to companies and financial institutions. Viewing the adverse impacts of projects as a violation of specific human rights can also be empowering for affected communities. Other frameworks used to analyze compliance include national laws, environmental and social policies of multilateral development banks, and company or industry standards and codes of conduct.

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Step 3:

Develop a research methodology

Although you are collecting evidence to support community-led advocacy, it is important to be as unbiased as possible when conducting research. You will need to explain your methodology in your report in order to demonstrate that the results are credible. If you don’t, your advocacy targets may try to dismiss your findings as biased. It is therefore important to carefully design your methods to ensure that the data and information that you collect is accurate and objective. There is a range of tools that you can use to gather information about the impacts of the project. It is best to use a combination of tools to ensure your data is comprehensive, accurate and reflects the experiences of all groups within the community.

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Step 4:

Organize and present your data

Once you have completed your data collection, you will need to organize your data. This process will depend on the type and amount of information collected by the team.

If your team includes experienced researchers with access to software, this process could involve entering the data into the program, which can then derive various types of statistics. If you collected only qualitative data from a smaller sample size, this process may simply involve reading through your notes and listening to interviews, marking and separating information about each issue and impact, and then describing or summarizing the information under the headings in your assessment framework.

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Step 5:

Analyze compliance

For each section of your report, review your data and analyze whether it shows violations of the relevant human rights, laws and standards in your assessment framework.

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Step 6:

Verify your data

Verifying — or fact-checking — your data is essential for compiling evidence and for ensuring that the community is engaged and aware of the content of the report.

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Step 7:

Formulate recommendations based on your findings

The main purpose of collecting evidence is to support the community in seeking accountability and remedies for harms suffered or anticipated. Setting out clear recommendations to each responsible actor is an important way to make the research useful.

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Section 2: Managing Risks

Using the advocacy strategies described in this guide to defend the rights and interests of affected communities often means challenging the interests of local elites and powerful corporations. As such, these strategies may involve security risks for you, your organization and the communities that you serve. These can include risks to the privacy of your information, the legal status of your organization, your own legal security and sometimes even your physical security. The risks of doing corporate accountability work vary widely from country to country, and as human rights advocates you will know best what the risks are in your legal and political environment.

Sometimes these risks are unavoidable when you are challenging powerful people, but other times they are the result of not being careful enough and a lack of planning. While there is no way to completely avoid the risks that accompany this work, there are ways you can reduce the risks. The following tips can help make you and your group more secure:

Be aware of risks: It is important to ensure that you, your team and the community advocates are all aware of the risks of your actions. Before you take any new actions, such as conducting research, filing a complaint, talking to the media or holding a protest, consider and discuss the range of possible security risks. Assess the likelihood of possible security problems and take this into account in deciding whether it is worth proceeding with the planned activity. Make a plan for dealing with any security issues that do arise, including agreeing on several contact people (who are aware of your plans in advance) to alert immediately. Ensure everyone has the list of phone numbers and other contact details.

Keep confidential information safe: In some countries, government agencies are able to listen to your phone calls and read your emails and text messages. If you suspect this might be the case in your country, and you want to discuss sensitive information with partners, including advocacy strategies, you should try to meet them to talk face to face. If that is not possible, conversations on Signal or Jitsi are usually a more secure way to chat and talk, although surveillance technology is constantly evolving, and they may not be completely secure.

If possible, get a second mobile phone with a different SIM card that is not registered in your name and use that for sensitive conversations. Store sensitive documents in a secure place, such as a filing cabinet with a lock, and keep back-up information, copies of computer files and paper files in a secure place. When talking directly to people about something sensitive, make sure that you know and trust them and be careful that there isn’t anyone listening nearby. Access Now, a non-profit organization, offers free advice to human rights activists and journalists on digital security.

Know the law and act within it: It is important to know what the law is in your country and make sure that you respect it, both in your words and actions. Sometimes human rights defenders are falsely charged with criminal offences or served unjustly with civil lawsuits in an effort to keep them silent, but the best way to avoid legal risks and to defend yourself if you are unjustly sued or prosecuted is to follow the law at all times.

One of the most common legal risks that human rights advocates face is being sued for defamation. The laws on defamation are different in every country and you should find out what they are in your country. Typically, defamation laws prohibit people from making false statements about another person in public or to a third party that cause injury or damage to the person’s reputation. Libel and slander are different types of defamation. Slander refers to verbal statements, while libel usually refers to statements made in writing. In most countries that have these laws, only statements that claim to be facts — not opinions — can be considered defamatory. In many (but not all) countries, the truth is a defense against defamation, though proving the truth can often be more costly and difficult than often assumed.

Important point

No matter what the law is in your country, you should always speak the truth in public. If you are not absolutely sure about the facts, or you don’t have the evidence to back it up, you should not make an accusation against another person or company in public or to any third party. If the truth is not a defense under the defamation laws in your country, or if there is weak rule of law, you should carefully assess the risks of making any critical statements about powerful people and corporations in public. If you are threatened with legal action, you should immediately consult a trusted lawyer.

Respond calmly and proactively to threats: If you or your organization identify a serious security threat, it is important to respond calmly but proactively:

1. Make a detailed record of any threats you experience immediately afterward, so that you have a record if you decide to report the incident to the authorities.
2. Mobilize support from your colleagues, partners and others who support your work, including local and international organizations, as appropriate.
3. Monitor the situation carefully and seek external monitoring support, if necessary.
4. Maintain security precautions, like changing your routine each day so that it is harder for people to follow you and find you. If you fear for your safety, you may want to stop your advocacy activities for a while and even consider physically moving to a safe location.
5. Sometimes, rather than staying quiet, it is better to raise the profile of a threat by telling the media about it. However, only do this if you think it will improve your security. Sometimes it can be effective for your NGO or a group of supportive NGOs to issue a collective statement about the threats.

Section 3: Advocacy Strategies

Multi-pronged advocacy strategies are essential to holding corporations accountable and securing redress. No single strategy is likely to be successful on its own. It is also highly likely that the community’s or campaign’s goals will not be achieved quickly and you will need to be prepared to pursue a range of strategies over an extended period of time, usually years.

In this section, you will find information and tips on using a range of advocacy strategies that can be employed by community and civil society advocates to stop harmful projects, secure remedy, and hold corporations accountable. You will find guidance on effectively engaging advocacy targets, including the main company behind the project and key actors along the investment and supply chain. You will find information on using non-judicial grievance mechanism, the courts and human rights institutions, and commentary of their effectiveness. You will also find guidance on using the media, including social media, and conducting shareholder and consumer advocacy. You will also find information on assessing security risks when deciding whether and how to employ any of these advocacy strategies. Each sub-section contains practical resources and lists of organizations that specialize in the area.

Throughout, you will find guidance on how these strategies can be used together to complement each other and increase the community’s power to level the playing field in the pursuit of accountability and justice.

A. Engaging with Advocacy Targets

If you consider it safe and strategic to do so, it is often a good idea to first communicate directly with the primary company responsible for the project on the ground and/or its parent company before escalating to other strategies. It may be possible to resolve community grievances through direct dialogue with the responsible company, and it shows a measure of good faith on your part to attempt to do so before resorting to more adversarial approaches. Also, if you move on to targeting other pressure points, or filing complaints to non-judicial grievance mechanisms, they are likely to ask if you attempted to engage first with the primary company and how they responded.

Before taking these actions, it is important that you clarify the community’s messages, arguments and demands. See Getting Organized for more guidance on this.

Ideally, you will have also gathered evidence into a report or other documentation, which you can use in your engagement with these actors. See Collecting Evidence for more guidance on how to do this.

1. Start with a letter or email

Often the best method for initial communications is through a letter or email, so you can clearly set out all the important information to support your argument and demands. The community may ask you to help them prepare a letter or to write and send a letter from your organization on their behalf. It may also be worth finding a civil society ally in the country where the company is based to co-sign the letter, because the company may be more likely to pay attention.

A letter to the main company behind the project may include some or all of the following elements:

• Who you are and whom you are representing. You should explain that the community is affected by the company’s activities.
• The main problems faced by the community as a result of the company’s activities. If you have already prepared an impact assessment report, you can include a summary of the main findings and attach the report as an annex.
• If the business has violated laws, policies or standards that it has committed to, you can include a summary of this analysis in your letter.
• The community’s message. You may decide to include the list of community demands, or you may decide that in the circumstances it is more strategic to simply request a meeting in order to discuss the situation and how to resolve the community’s grievances.
• A request for a meeting with the company.
• A deadline for a response. Sometimes it can be strategic to mention in the letter what you will do next if you do not receive a satisfactory response from the company by the deadline. Possible consequences include notifying investors or buyers connected to the company, publicizing the problems through the media, or submitting an official complaint to a grievance mechanism. However, it is also generally a good idea to try to keep things cordial at this stage, so that the company is more likely to engage in a constructive dialogue rather than become defensive.

2. Engaging other pressure points

If there is no adequate response to your letter by the deadline that you set, the next move could be to send similar letters to relevant government agencies or key actors along the investment chain based on your analysis of pressure points. For example, if you have identified major shareholders or lenders that are bound by certain policies or standards and could have considerable influence over the company, you may decide to send a letter to them next.

In addition to the type of information listed above, make sure that early on in the letter you clearly set out your understanding of the actor’s relationship to the project. For example, if you are writing to a shareholder, start by stating that you are writing to them because they hold a significant shareholding in the primary company causing harms. If you know the size of the shareholding, you can include that information too. You should also mention the relevant policies or standards the actor subscribes to that you believe have been violated and summarize the main impacts or violations.

Make sure to be clear about what you want the actor to do, such as use its leverage with the company causing human rights violations to implore it to end the violations and provide remedy.

In some cases, where the community wants to file a complaint to a non-judicial grievance mechanism, it may be strategic to file the complaint first and then send letters to the key pressure points, such as shareholders and buyers, alerting them to the complaint and urging them to use their leverage with the company to implore it to engage in good faith in the complaints process and fully address the human rights and environmental issues.

A. Using Non-Judicial Grievance Mechanisms

As explained in the sections on using courts and human rights mechanisms, it can be very difficult for aggrieved communities to seek justice and hold companies accountable in court or by using human rights bodies. In response to campaigns highlighting these significant accountability gaps, some companies, industries, governments and development banks have developed their own, non-judicial grievance mechanisms. These mechanisms are generally established to receive complaints from communities or workers who have suffered or anticipate harms.

Given that many of these mechanisms are established by corporations, banks and industries, they are, unsurprisingly, flawed in their ability to provide remedy for communities and hold companies accountable. However, because they are relatively accessible and cheap to use, and because their processes, if used effectively, can result in flexible remedial action beyond just monetary compensation, these mechanisms are sometimes the best option for communities.

These mechanisms can be most effective when used as one part of a broader, multi-pronged advocacy strategy that targets other pressure points along investment and supply chains. While these mechanisms often lack the power to compel action, companies do care about formal complaints filed against them when they come with reputational damage and financial costs. Therefore, filing a complaint is an important moment for media advocacy and alerting key actors along the investment and supply chain to the complaint.

While most non-judicial grievance mechanisms typically have two main functions that communities can use — a dispute resolution function (usually mediation) and an investigation function to assess compliance with relevant policies and standards — there are differences in the way each type of mechanism, and each individual complaints office, handles those functions. In general, the complaint mechanisms of development banks tend to run more robust dispute resolution processes and deeper investigations than other types of non-judicial grievance mechanisms. However, each mechanism has different procedural rules, budgets and approaches so if you have the option of using more than one, it is worth finding out from civil society organizations with experience using the mechanisms which ones are most worth pursuing in the context of your case.

This section describes several types of non-judicial grievance mechanisms and provides some commentary on their effectiveness.

Tip

If you are representing communities through any of these grievance mechanisms, you should obtain evidence of your authority to represent them and submit this along with the complaint. If the community members submitting the complaint wish to keep their identities confidential from the government and company because they fear reprisals, make sure they clearly request confidentiality in the complaint.

1. OECD NATIONAL CONTACT POINTS

One type of non-judicial grievance mechanism that is most frequently available to communities seeking remedy for harmful investment projects is National Contact Points (NCPs). These are mechanisms established by governments in countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to receive and handle complaints about breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. These guidelines define standards for, among other things, socially and environmentally responsible business conduct, including respect for human rights.

NCPs generally offer a dispute resolution service, and if that fails to resolve the issues, they conduct an examination of the company’s conduct against the human rights and environmental standards in the guidelines and publish a statement with their findings, sometimes with recommendations for the company to improve their policies and practices. NCPs vary in their effectiveness and none can make enforceable rulings against companies. But, when used alongside a broader multi-pronged advocacy strategy, they can be an effective tool for seeking remedy and holding companies accountable.

If the company that operates the project or its parent company is based in an OECD member country, you may be able to file a complaint to the relevant NCP. If one of the other actors along the investment or supply chain is directly linked or contributed to the harms and is based in an OECD country, you may also be able to file a complaint against that actor. If the project itself is in an OECD country, you can file a complaint to the NCP in that country.

a. OECD National Contact Points

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organization made up of member countries. The OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises define standards for, among other things, socially and environmentally responsible business conduct. The guidelines are non-binding recommendations from OECD governments and adhering countries to multinational companies that are operating in or from their countries.

The guidelines cover a broad range of issues including human rights, labor rights and the environment. The guidelines recognize the human rights due diligence and other responsibilities of enterprises at all levels in the investment and supply chain. The OECD has developed guidance documents to support implementation of the guidelines in various sectors, including the financial, extractive and agricultural sectors.

Although the guidelines are voluntary for companies, OECD and adhering governments are responsible for ensuring that they are implemented and observed. Among other requirements, governments must establish National Contact Points (NCPs) to receive and handle complaints (called “specific instances”) about breaches of the guidelines. You can find the contact details for NCPs in each country here.

Any interested individual or group may complain to an NCP in the location where a company is based or where it operates (the home or host country). If the company managing a harmful project, or another company in the investment or supply chain, is headquartered in an OECD country, you can bring a complaint to the NCP in that country. For example, if the project affecting the community you are supporting is owned by a German parent company, you can file a complaint with the German NCP. If the project itself is in an OECD country, you can file a complaint to the NCP in that country. You can use this tool to help determine whether you can file an NCP complaint and which NCP to use.

b. Complaint Content

A complaint to an NCP should explain how the company breached the OECD Guidelines and what harm resulted from those failures. It should include evidence to support the claims and should explain your desired outcome. Here is a template that you can use for writing a complaint.

Each NCP adopts its own procedural rules for handling complaints, so it is important to read the rules published by the NCP you intend to use. In general, once an NCP receives a complaint, it conducts an initial assessment to evaluate the complaint according to admissibility criteria established in the OECD Guidelines’ Procedural Guidance. If the NCP accepts the complaint, it will attempt to help the parties resolve the complaint through mediation or another form of dispute resolution.

If dispute resolution fails, the NCP may investigate the alleged breaches and issue recommendations. At the end of the process, the NCP should publish a final statement about the complaint, any resolution reached, and any determinations and recommendations made by the NCP. Some NCP’s will ask the company and complainant to report to the NCP after a period of time, usually one year, on progress in implementing the recommendations.

The quality and effectiveness of NCPs vary widely and change over time. In some successful cases, complaints have resulted in mediated agreements between companies and communities. In others, NCPs have published fairly strong final statements that find that companies breached the OECD guidelines and made recommendations to the company to improve their policies or practices. In other cases, however, NCPs have been very slow and inefficient, and some have shown bias towards the company. It is important to seek the advice of experienced organizations that have knowledge of the relevant NCP to make sure it’s a worthwhile use of your organization’s resources. In most cases, it will be necessary to use complementary advocacy strategies, such as using the media and shareholder advocacy, alongside NCP complaints in order to hold the company accountable and obtain remedy. Like all non-judicial grievance mechanisms, NCPs should be viewed as one tool in a broader strategy.

c. Complaint Confidentiality

Some NCPs have strict confidentiality requirements in their procedural rules and will discourage public advocacy alongside the complaints process, especially mediation. These rules are generally problematic for communities suffering human rights abuses and fail to take into account the serious power imbalances between communities and companies that need to be corrected in order to secure remedy and accountability. One way around this restriction is to form partnerships with other CSO allies who are not part of the complaints process and can continue other forms of advocacy, so long as it does not negatively impact genuine progress made through the process.

For an example of how an NCP was used effectively by communities as part of a multi-pronged advocacy strategy, see: https://www.followingthemoney.org/cambodian-communities-use-australian-national-contact-point-to-reach-groundbreaking-agreement-with-anz-bank

2. DEVELOPMENT FINANCE ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS

If you have identified an international development bank in your investment chain, there is a good chance that it has its own complaints office, usually known as an “accountability mechanism.” An increasing number of bilateral development banks, export credit agencies and aid agencies also have their own accountability mechanisms. In this section, we will refer to development banks but the information also applies to other multilateral and bilateral financial institutions that have accountability mechanisms. Most accountability mechanisms have a degree of independence from the financial institution’s day-to-day management.

If the community you are supporting has been harmed, or fears harm, caused by a project that is directly or indirectly financially supported by a development bank, they may be able to file a complaint with the bank’s accountability mechanism.

Like NCPs, accountability mechanisms of development banks all generally offer dispute resolution between representatives of the complainant community and the company (the bank’s client), and sometimes other relevant actors, such as the bank itself. Typically, accountability mechanisms offer a more robust dispute resolution process than NCPs, involving multiple face-to-face meetings and support to enable community representatives to join the meetings. These processes can last many months or years depending on the issues raised in the complaint and other factors. Accountability mechanisms also all have a “compliance review” function, but typically they assess the bank’s compliance with its own policies, rather than directly assessing whether the bank’s client respected the bank’s standards, though the better mechanisms do both.

Accountability mechanisms vary in their effectiveness and none can make enforceable rulings against companies or order them to provide compensation or other remedies. But when used alongside a broader multi-pronged advocacy strategy, they can be an effective tool for seeking remedy and holding companies and their development bank backers accountable.

If you have identified an international development bank in your investment chain, there is a good chance that it has its own complaints office, usually known as an “accountability mechanism.” An increasing number of national agencies, including bilateral development banks, export credit agencies and aid agencies, also have their own accountability mechanisms. Most accountability mechanisms have a degree of independence from the financial institution’s day-to-day management.

If the community you are supporting has been harmed, or fears harm, caused by a project that is backed by a development bank, they may be able to file a complaint with the bank’s accountability mechanism. For example, if the community is harmed by a mine that is financed by the International Finance Corporation, you can file a complaint to its accountability mechanism, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO). Each accountability mechanism has its own procedural rules for handling complaints, so it is important to read the rules published by the mechanism you are considering using.

Note that some accountability mechanisms, such as the Asian Development Bank’s Accountability Mechanism, require that you first try to resolve your grievances directly with the development bank’s operations staff or management. In such cases, before filing a complaint, write to the senior management of the financial institution outlining the grievances and what you want the institution to do. Provide a deadline to respond, which will indicate that the community intends to file an official complaint to the accountability mechanism if they don’t get a satisfactory and timely response. Sometimes the threat of filing a complaint can be just as effective, or even more so, than the actual filing of the complaint in getting the institution to take action. If this doesn’t work, you will have the paper trail that you need to take the matter to the accountability mechanism.

Your complaint should clearly explain the harms suffered or anticipated due to the project, along with the remedies and other outcomes sought. If you have a report setting out the impacts, you can send this along with the complaint. For most accountability mechanisms, it is advisable for the complaint to also describe violations of the institution’s policies and procedures.

Tip

While some accountability mechanisms accept very short, simple complaints, it is often helpful to provide details about the violations and resulting harm, as well as supporting evidence. Taking the time to develop a strong complaint will help the community be more prepared to engage with the process with clear information about the facts and impacts. Providing detailed information will also help the people working at the mechanism better understand the situation, enabling them do a better job of trying to resolve the problems or assess compliance with relevant policies. Finally, many development banks and their company clients respond defensively to complaints. If you decide to use the compliance function, which is explained below, the institutions lawyers will write a response to your complaint. If your complaint is well written and backed by evidence, it will be harder for the institution to refute or discredit the claims.

Most accountability mechanisms address complaints through two functions: 1) dispute resolution and 2) compliance review.

Dispute resolution is a voluntary dialogue process between the parties, which is typically the community complainants (sometimes supported by CSO advisors or representatives) and the company, but can also involve the development bank itself and other responsible actors in some capacity.

Typically, the accountability mechanism hires a neutral mediator to facilitate negotiations between the parties or to support other voluntary processes to resolve grievances. The process often takes several months or even years. Accountability mechanisms usually also have a mandate to monitor the implementation of any agreements reached.

Compliance review is a process of assessing whether the bank has violated its own social and environmental policies, and whether violations have caused or contributed to the harms suffered by the complainants. While compliance reviews focus on whether the bank complied with its own rules for providing financing and supervising their clients, a good investigation will also assess whether the bank’s client met environmental and social standards on the ground. After investigating, the accountability mechanism produces a report that may, depending on the mechanism, include recommendations on how to remedy any harms caused by non-compliance. Generally, the mechanism submits the report to the bank’s leadership, which decides whether to accept any recommendation or implement any remedial actions along with its client. This process and the rules for how the banks respond to compliance reports and recommendations varies across mechanisms and banks.

In deciding whether to use dispute resolution or compliance review, it is important to focus on the community’s goals, its capacity to engage in a mediation process, and which function is more likely to achieve the desired result. For many communities, it is strategic to choose both functions, since they have different pros and cons, as described below.

Dispute resolution provides an opportunity for direct dialogue with the company causing harm, and the involvement of an independent mediator, along with other factors, can help mitigate the power imbalance between the community and the company. Dispute resolution also allows the community to prioritize issues and negotiate for the specific solutions they want, such as water restoration, better conditions at resettlement sites or any other type of resolution to the problems. The community can choose to stop the process at any point if they believe it is not effective at addressing their problems. However, since it is a voluntary process, the bank’s client (which is usually responsible for the harm) may not agree to participate in the first place, or if they do, they may not participate in good faith with a genuine intention to listen to the community and remedy harms.

Dispute resolution processes may take several years, and effective participation requires good community organizing and a significant time commitment by at least some community members. To be successful, community representatives will likely need training in negotiation skills and support throughout the mediation process. Also, if there are security concerns, it is hard to keep community members’ identities confidential in these processes, since they typically need to sit across the table from the company.

For a good example of the potential of dispute resolution, see: Mongolian Herders Pursued Remedy Through Dialogue with a Mining Company – Following the Money

Compliance review is typically less time consuming for community members. At best, the final report may validate the community’s concerns and find breaches of the applicable social and environmental standards. At some institutions, the bank is required to respond to non-compliance findings by working with their client to implement remedial actions. Sometimes they are required to consult the community about how to remedy the problems. However, because complainants do not typically play a large role in compliance review processes, they have less ability to shape priorities or solutions. These processes may also take several years and the accountability mechanism may not agree with all of the community’s concerns. In many cases, even strong compliance reports and recommendations do not translate into needed change on the ground because accountability mechanisms do not have the power to enforce their findings and recommendations.

For a good example of the potential of compliance review, see: Displaced Cambodian Families Used Compliance Review to Secure Long Overdue Compensation – Following the Money

With either dispute resolution or compliance review, it is important to use other forms of complementary advocacy both before and after filing a complaint to increase pressure on the relevant actors to do the right thing. This includes advocacy aimed at the senior management and/or board of directors of the development bank, as well as other actors in the project’s investment and supply chain. For example, once you file a complaint, it is a good idea to write to a company’s shareholders, lenders and buyers, and other key pressure points, to alert them to the complaint. If the community wants to try mediation, you can ask those actors to use their leverage with the company to implore it to agree to mediation and engage in good faith to address the community’s concerns. Media advocacy when you file a complaint or when it is found admissible by the mechanism can help increase pressure on the company and the development bank.

Tip

In setting the ground rules for a dispute resolution process, it is important to avoid overly broad confidentiality rules. This is important because it is often helpful to engage with other actors along the investment and supply chain throughout the process to keep them updated and ask them to use their leverage if the company is not negotiating fairly.

During compliance review, you should engage with the development bank throughout the investigation to ensure that the case remains visible during what can be a slow process. Once the investigation is complete, you should be prepared to advocate for a specific outcome with the institution’s leadership, such as the executive directors and/or highest level of management. Remember that it is the institution’s leadership that will ultimately decide whether to approve any remedial actions.

Using accountability mechanisms is most effective when complainants and their allies remain actively engaged in advocacy with the relevant institutions and other actors throughout the process. Even if you end up with a strong agreement or final compliance report, there needs to be pressure on all relevant actors to actually implement remedial actions.

3. Financial intermediary complaints

In the past, most development banks loaned money directly to companies and governments managing large projects. However, development banks are increasingly allocating large portions of their lending to commercial banks and private equity funds. These “financial intermediary” clients then lend the money to end users. The money is difficult to track, even for the development banks themselves, which poses serious transparency and accountability problems.

As development banks have increased their financial intermediary portfolios, the number of financial intermediary complaints to accountability mechanisms has increased as well. If there is a development bank in a project’s investment chain, even if the bank is not directly supporting the project, you may be able to use the bank’s accountability mechanism. However, many mechanisms’ procedural rules were not developed with financial intermediary complaints in mind, and it can be challenging to know whether a financial intermediary complaint will be eligible prior to filing.

The International Finance Corporation’s accountability mechanism, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has received the highest volume of financial intermediary complaints. Its policy adopted in 2021 now includes specific criteria for these complaints.

Tip

If the community decides to file a complaint to an accountability mechanism about a project financed by a financial intermediary client of a development bank, there is an important difference to keep in mind. The development bank does not have a direct relationship with the company operating the project and therefore the company may not have committed to respecting any environmental and social standards, so it may feel less pressure to participate in the complaints process. This makes it even more important to conduct complementary advocacy, including engaging other actors along the investment and supply chain and asking them to use their leverage to create pressure on the company.

If you are considering a financial intermediary complaint, it is advisable to seek the advice of an organization experienced with these types of complaints.

To read an example of how communities effectively used a financial intermediary complaint as a key part of their strategy to secure justice for forced displacement, see: Following the Money to Justice from Guinea’s Siguiri Gold Mine – Following the Money

USEFUL RESOURCES

The Independent Accountability Mechanisms Network (IAMnet) brings together the most active development finance accountability mechanisms. Its members include the accountability mechanisms associated with the following institutions.

African Development Bank (AfDB)

Environmental Defender Law Center

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

European Investment Bank (EIB)

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)

International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA))

Several other bilateral and regional development finance institutions are also members. The network has developed criteria for membership, including independence from the operational management of the institutions and principles for cooperation between mechanisms. It also developed a guide for addressing the risk of reprisals in complaint management. Several of the mechanisms have also produced useful guides and toolkits relevant to a variety of accountability and complaint-related topics.

You can find links to organizations that assist communities in filing complaints to accountability mechanisms on the Using Non-Judicial Grievance Mechanisms page.

Admin’s Note: A console to these institutions is also available here: Complaint Pathfinder | Accountability Toolkit

4. MULTI-STAKEHOLDER INITIATIVE GRIEVANCE MECHANISMS

Multi-stakeholder sustainability initiatives are associations that bring together companies and civil society, with the stated goal of making business activities more socially and environmentally responsible. They often engage companies that are involved in the same industry or are producers, sellers and buyers of a particular product or commodity, such as aluminum or palm oil. Other multi-stakeholder initiatives bring together companies and other actors based on the mutual environmental or social impacts of their activities, such as impacts on forests or labor conditions. Companies typically engage in these initiatives though membership, which usually requires them to agree to follow the initiative’s code of conduct and other policies, or through a more rigorous system of certification that verifies that their business practices meet a particular set of standards, including social and environmental standards.

As consumers become more concerned about social and environmental issues, they want to be sure that the products they buy were made without harming people and the environment. As a result of this consumer demand, companies are increasingly concerned about labeling their products as certified by sustainability initiatives, such as those described below.

Some of these initiatives have established grievance processes for receiving and addressing complaints that emerge from the operations of their members or of companies they have certified. Complaints need to demonstrate that a company’s practices have failed to meet the standards of the multi-stakeholder initiative. In theory, grievances should be resolved through the complaints process, and if the business fails to address them in a manner consistent with the applicable standards, it can be expelled from the multi-stakeholder group and/or lose certification. This can have a serious effect on the business’s reputation and can therefore be a powerful part of your advocacy strategy.

However, by their nature, multi-stakeholder initiatives may be easily influenced by companies and often fail to function fairly and effectively to address the grievances of affected communities. They are not always willing or able to influence the behavior of large business members, and instead may shield those companies from negative publicity. For more information on the shortcomings of using multi-stakeholder initiatives in corporate accountability advocacy, see Institute for Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Integrity’s report, Not Fit for Purpose.

If the company operating the project causing harms or one of the companies along its investment or supply chain are members of a relevant multi-stakeholder initiative, you may be able to file a complaint with its grievance mechanism. However, before you decide to file a complaint with a multi-stakeholder initiative, it is worth asking the advice of other organizations that have recently had experience engaging with it to decide whether it is worthwhile and how to make the best use of it.

5. COMPANY & OPERATIONAL-LEVEL GRIEVANCE MECHANISMS

The Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which the U.N. Human Rights Council endorsed in 2011, tell companies to “establish or participate in effective operational-level grievance mechanisms for individuals and communities who may be adversely impacted” by their operations. While operational-level grievance mechanisms have become increasingly common, many have been criticized for not being fair or effective.

If there is a company or operational-level grievance mechanism available, it is a good idea to ask other organizations or communities with experience using the mechanism if they found the process worthwhile. Take this information into account when advising communities whether or not to try to use the mechanism to resolve their problems. As a general rule, company grievance mechanisms are usually ineffective for addressing serious harms and human rights violations, especially those that affect entire communities. Depending on the company, they may be more effective at addressing single instances of problems, such as where a household received an incorrect compensation amount because of a mistake made in an inventory list or calculation.

However, it may be worth using the grievance mechanisms of other companies along investment and supply chains, such as a bank that has financed a project, a shareholder, or a company that buys the commodity. Using their grievance mechanisms can be a good way to alert them to the problems on the ground and get them to use their leverage to bring about remedy, or if they themselves contributed to the harms, to push them to contribute to remedy.

B. Using Courts

Some advocates look to the courts to seek justice for communities whose human rights have been violated by companies. If the project involves several responsible actors along the investment chain, legal action may be possible in more than one jurisdiction. For example:

• It may be possible to sue the company directly responsible for violations in the country where the project and violations are taking place.
• If the company managing the project or its parent company is foreign, it may be possible to take legal action in the country where the company is registered.
• It may be possible to take legal action against financial institutions backing the project in the countries where the financial institutions are registered.
• It may also be possible to sue buyers that have purchased the product produced by the project. It may be possible to bring legal action against a buyer in the country that is importing the product.

If litigation is possible in a jurisdiction with strong rule of law and an independent judiciary, it can be an effective way to hold a company accountable. If the community wins and the judgment is enforceable, the company involved will be legally required to comply with the court order even if the community is in another country. Sometimes, just starting litigation will place enough pressure on the company to persuade it to settle the dispute rather than face the risk of losing the case in court. There are, however, many obstacles to using courts, including:

• Political interference and corruption in courts in many countries;
• Weaknesses or gaps in laws and regulations governing the activities that have caused human rights violations;
• Lack of legal liability of lenders, investors and buyers in many countries, even though they make the projects possible and receive a portion of the profits;
• Difficulty of attributing legal responsibility to one member of a corporate group, such as a parent company, for the activities of another part of the group, such as a subsidiary, when they are registered as separate legal entities;
• Limits on extraterritorial — or transnational — jurisdiction. Courts may reject a case because the wrongdoing occurred in another country;
• Lengthy court processes that can take many years; and
• The high cost of litigation and the difficulty of finding free legal representation. Even if you are able to find a lawyer, there are many other costs involved. In many courts, if you lose the case, the judge may order you to pay the legal fees of the other party, which can be an enormous sum.

RECENT BREAKTHROUGHS IN TRANSNATIONAL LITIGATION

Although transnational litigation is often extremely challenging, costly and unpredictable, in some cases, it is a powerful tool for corporate accountability. Recent decisions in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Thailand indicate that some jurisdictions may be becoming more open to these types of cases. The Dutch court decision in particular (discussed below) set an important precedent for corporate accountability by ordering compensation for harms caused overseas and finding that the parent company holds a legal responsibility to communities affected by its subsidiary.

Dutch Court Ordered Shell to Compensate for Oil Spills in Nigeria

In January 2021, the Dutch Court of Appeal issued a landmark ruling that found Shell Nigeria liable for damage caused by oil spills in 2004 and 2005. The court also held that Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company, owed a duty of care to affected villagers and would be liable for a failure to prevent future oil spills. The case is the first foreign direct liability case to result in an enforceable decision on the merits (the facts and evidence) in favor of claimants. It is also the first to find that a parent company owed a duty of care to claimants residing in another country. It sets a precedent for future transnational litigation.

The case began in 2008 and 2009, when four Nigerian farmers, together with Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), filed three separate lawsuits in the Netherlands, where the parent company is headquartered. The lawsuits related to devastating oil spills in three different Nigerian villages. The case had to overcome many hurdles along the way, including challenges related to jurisdiction, applicable law and disclosure of relevant company documents. The January 2021 decision requires Shell Nigeria to pay compensation to two of the villages. Litigation regarding the third village is ongoing.

United Kingdom Supreme Court Confirmed Parent Company Duty of Care to People Harmed by Foreign Subsidiaries

In April 2019, the U.K. Supreme Court upheld a 2017 decision of the Court of Appeal affirming the possibility that U.K. mining company Vedanta Resources had a duty of care to Zambian villagers allegedly harmed by the activities of its Zambian subsidiary. The decision allowed the case to move forward to a trial on the merits. In January 2021, the villagers and Vedanta issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached a settlement (an agreement).

The case began in 2015, when Zambian villagers filed a lawsuit against Vedanta Resources and its Zambian subsidiary for allegedly polluting their land and destroying their livelihoods. Vedanta and its subsidiary challenged the jurisdiction of the U.K. courts but lost their Supreme Court appeal in 2019. The ruling is significant because it opens the possibility of a parent company having a duty of care to all those directly affected by the operations of its subsidiaries, including those operating in other countries. However, whether Vedanta actually had a duty of care to the affected community in Zambia was never established because a settlement was reached before it went to trial on the merits.

MANDATORY HUMAN RIGHTS DUE DILIGENCE LEGISLATION

As mentioned above, one of the many challenges to transnational litigation is the lack of legal responsibility in many countries for lenders, investors, buyers and even parent companies. A new wave of mandatory human rights due diligence legislation, however, may bring a new era of corporate accountability.

Under the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies have a responsibility to undertake human rights due diligence. There is growing momentum, particularly in Europe, to make this a legally enforceable standard, opening companies to the possibility of legal consequences when they cause or contribute to harm. The trend began with the French Duty of Vigilance law, adopted in 2017, which creates binding obligations for companies and judicial pathways for victims. While this legislation is groundbreaking, it has some notable weaknesses. For example, there have been challenges identifying which companies are covered, many companies are not publishing comprehensive vigilance plans, and there is no official government monitoring of companies’ implementation of the law. The first two legal proceedings under the Duty of Vigilance law have been brought against French oil company Total. The first was dismissed by the civil courts in 2020 based on lack of jurisdiction, but in February 2021, a French civil court ruled that it had jurisdiction over the second.

In April 2024, the European Parliament passed an important new piece of mandatory human rights due diligence legislation called the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The CSDD seeks to enforce companies’ responsibilities to conduct environmental and human rights due diligence, and to address actual or potential adverse impacts, in line with the UNGPs and the OECD Guidelines. Under the directive, companies within its scope must engage meaningfully with stakeholders, including affected communities. They must also establish or participate in effective remediation processes to address adverse human rights and environmental impacts connected with their operations , the operations of their business partners and their supply chains.

The directive applies to EU companies, or companies with operations in the EU, that meet a certain threshold of size (number of workers) and/or annual global turnover. However, experts believe that in practice a greater number of companies will be affected by the Directive by virtue of how it will shape contracts, supply chain expectations, and other elements of business conduct.

The CSDDD will have a “phased-in” entry into force applying to companies depending on size. EU member states have two years to transpose it into their national law. However, the directive is already influencing the way companies approach adverse human rights and environmental impacts of their operations and supply chains. Therefore, it is worth referring to the directive in engagement with companies based in or that operate in the EU.

You can find the full text of the CSDDD here, and a helpful briefing that summarizes the CSDDD and the expectations it places on companies, here.

Besides the EU-wide CSDDD, Norway and Germany have recently adopted human rights due diligence laws, while similar laws are being actively considered in the Netherlands and several other European countries.

USEFUL RESOURCES

If, after conducting research, you believe that your case is strong and it may be possible to use the courts despite the many challenges, there are several organizations that you can contact. In addition to legal aid organizations in your own country, the following organizations may be able to provide you with free legal advice or connect you with pro bono lawyers:

Above Ground (Canada)

Environmental Defender Law Center

Trustlaw

Center For Constitutional Rights (U.S.)

Earthrights International (U.S.)

Sherpa (France)

Leigh Day (U.K.)

Prakken D’oliveira (Netherlands)

Pilnet

Human Rights Law Centre (Australia)

International Senior Lawyers Project

International Commission Of Jurists

Corporate Justice Coalition (U.K.)

Additionally, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s Corporate Legal Accountability portal includes a lawyers directory, as well as a database tracking more than 200 lawsuits and a variety of litigation resources and other publications.

GUIDES & OTHER RESOURCES

Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Abuses: A Guide for Victims and NGOs on Recourse Mechanisms by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) (2021).

Transnational Lawsuits in Canada against Extractive Companies by Above Ground (2021).

Access to Legal Remedies for Victims of Corporate Human Rights Abuses in Third Countries a study requested by the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights (2019).

Nowhere to Turn: Addressing Australian Corporate Abuses Overseas by the Human Rights Law Center (2019).

Improving Paths to Business Accountability for Human Rights Abuses in the Global Supply Chains: A Legal Guide by Essex Business and Human Rights Project (2017).

Holding UK Companies to Account in the English Courts for Harming People in Other Countries by CORE and the London Mining Network (2016).

Human Rights in European Business: A Practical Handbook for Civil Society Organizations and Human Rights Defenders by Tarragona Centre for Environmental Law Studies (2016).

The Third Pillar: Access to Judicial Remedies for Human Rights Violations by Transnational Business by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), CORE, and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) (2016).

Parent Company Accountability: Ensuring Justice for Human Rights Violations by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) (2015).

Foreign Legal Assistance Guide by EarthRights International (2014).

Injustice Incorporated: Corporate Abuses and the Human Right to Remedy by Amnesty International (2014).

Power of Law, Power of People: Training Materials for Advocates by EarthRights International (2014).

Out of Bounds: Accountability for Corporate Human Rights Abuse After Kiobel by EarthRights International (2013).

Transnational Litigation Manual for Human Rights and Environmental Cases in United States Courts: A Resource for Non-Lawyers by EarthRights International (2nd ed. 2006)

C. Human Rights Mechanisms

 advocacy strategy. These bodies generally focus on the human rights obligations of governments, including all government agencies and officials (referred to as “states” under international law). They are often willing to consider the failure of states to protect against human rights violations caused by companies. Increasingly, however, these bodies are also willing to address the human rights responsibilities of businesses directly.

When human rights mechanisms do have a mandate to examine violations caused by companies, they often lack the power to require companies to take remedial action. However, they can still be helpful tools to use to elevate a case and bolster a broader multi-pronged advocacy strategy.

The following are human rights bodies that you could use as part of your advocacy strategy:

a. National human rights institutions

These are domestic bodies that in some cases have a mandate to promote and protect human rights by handling complaints. The independence, mandates and power granted to national human rights institutions vary widely from country to country. Some can receive and investigate human rights complaints and make recommendations, while others can initiate their own investigations into allegations of human rights issues without first receiving a complaint. Generally speaking, national human rights institutions do not have the power to make binding and enforceable decisions, but their findings and recommendations can still be useful in your broader advocacy strategy. Sometimes national courts can enforce decisions made by national human rights institutions, as is the case with the Kenyan Human Rights Commission and High Court for example.

Traditionally, national human rights institutions have focused on the government’s compliance with human rights, and some can still only investigate complaints against government agencies and officials. Increasingly, though, national human rights institutions have begun to address human rights abuse by companies. According to International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), those with a track record of dealing with business and human rights issues include: Australia, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa and Thailand.

The process for filing a complaint and potential outcomes varies by country. You should research the mandates, effectiveness and track records of the national human rights institutions that are relevant to your case to decide whether it’s worth filing a complaint. You will also need to check if the institutions have the power to consider violations of the particular human rights that have been breached in your case. Most have their own website, which will provide you with information about their mandate. It may be possible to engage the institutions of both the country where the violation occurred as well as the home country where the company is based. For more information on national human rights institutions, including a full list of institutions and their ‘accreditation,’ or level of compliance with international standards, see the website of the U.N. Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), including their membership list.

b. Regional human rights bodies

 communities can file complaints to these bodies to seek justice and remedies for human rights violations committed by a state. It is important to know that you cannot file a complaint directly against a company — only against a state. However, this can include violations that government agencies and officials allowed to occur or failed to prevent, including those caused directly by companies. For instance, if a government failed to prevent a mining company from committing human rights abuses, the state may be held accountable for those human rights violations.

When a complaint is filed at a regional human rights body, it can determine whether the state is responsible for the alleged violation and what it should do to repair the harm. Some of these bodies also have the power to call for “interim measures,” or call on states to take urgent action, or refrain from taking a certain action (such as granting a license for a company to operate) if there is a risk of irreparable harm. The judgements of regional human rights courts, such as the African Court of Justice and Human Rights or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, are binding upon states.

Before filing a complaint at a regional human rights body, it is generally necessary to first try resolving grievances at the local or national level, such as in domestic courts.

You can find more information about regional human rights bodies at the International Justice Resource Center. For further detail about using regional mechanisms for corporate accountability purposes specifically, including guidance on filing complaints and expected outcomes from each mechanism, and relevant past cases at each mechanism, see Part III (pages 108-190) of FIDH’s Corporate Accountability Guide.

c. United Nations human rights mechanisms

Special procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council

The Special Procedures of the U.N. Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with mandates to report and advise on human rights themes or country-specific issues. These human rights experts can send letters and urgent appeals to governments or other actors, including companies and development banks, to bring alleged violations to their attention. You can submit a complaint about a human rights violation to the relevant thematic expert — including the special rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders, the rights to food, adequate housing, and on the rights of Indigenous peoples — explaining all of the important facts and requesting that they send a letter to the company, government and/or one or more of the other key actors along the investment and supply chain.

One particularly relevant expert group is the U.N. Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, also known as the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights, mandated to promote the effective implementation of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human rights. You can contact the U.N. Working Group members and request that they, alone or in collaboration with other thematic experts, send a letter to the relevant actors in the investment chain.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has general information on communicating with these thematic experts. It also has contact details for the thematic experts, as well as those who focus on specific countries.

Human rights treaty bodies

The human rights treaty bodies are committees of independent experts that monitor implementation of the core international human rights treaties. You can use these bodies in two ways:

One: States that have ratified or acceded (formally agreed) to human rights treaties are required to report on their compliance with the treaty obligations to the corresponding treaty body every few years. For example, states that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) are required to report to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on the situation in their country regarding, for example, the rights to an adequate standard of living, education and health. States that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) are required to report to the Human Rights Committee regarding rights to, for example, privacy and freedom of expression. While it is governments that must report to the committees, civil society can also provide information, including by submitting parallel reports about the human rights situation or specific cases of human rights abuses. When the country in which the human rights violation occurred reports to a relevant treaty body, you can consider submitting information about your case.

It is also possible to submit information about the case when the home country of a key actor along the investment or supply chain is being reviewed by a relevant treaty body. For example, if a German development bank is financing an overseas project that is contributing to human rights violations, you could submit a parallel report to the treaty body when Germany is being examined. Make sure to clearly explain the connection between the human rights violation and the failure of the home country government to regulate the overseas activities of the company. The treaty body may then address the issue or case in its review of the country and refer to it in its concluding observations, which you can then use to bolster your advocacy.

Two:  body about the specific violations by the state of its treaty obligations in your case. The complainant must have exhausted all remedies that are available in the relevant state before bringing a claim to a committee. If the committee decides the complaint is admissible, it generally considers the complaint on the basis of written information by the complainants and the government. If the committee decides that the state is in violation of human rights recognized in the treaty, it asks the government to provide information within a set time period about the steps it has taken to give effect to its findings and recommendations to remedy the violation.

You can find out more information about the Human Rights Committee and about the CESCR on their respective websites. You can find out if the relevant country is a party to ICCPR, ICESCR and the Optional Protocols here. You can learn more about submitting an individual communication to treaty bodies, including the Human Rights Committee and CESCR, here.

d. Towards a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights

Currently there is no binding international law to regulate the activities of businesses. However, in 2014 the U.N. Human Rights Council created a working group with the mandate to create an international legally binding treaty on the human rights responsibilities of businesses. Since then, there have been several drafts of the binding treaty, the most recent of which was released in August 2021. The draft treaty is still subject to negotiation between U.N. member states and is not yet ready for adoption. Once it is, though, it will place new obligations on states that choose to ratify it and open the door to new opportunities for victims of corporate human rights abuse to pursue remedy.

RESOURCES

In addition to human rights organizations in your own country and region, the following international organizations and networks may be able to provide advice and assistance in using international human rights bodies:

Center for International and Environmental Law

The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

FIAN International

Global Legal Advocacy Network

International Commission of Jurists

International Network for Economic Social & Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net)

International Federation for Human Rights

International Service for Human Rights

International Justice Resource Center

Natural Justice

The ETO Consortium

GUIDES & OTHER RESOURCES

A Practical Guide to the UN Special Procedures, International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) (2019)

A Simple Guide to the UN Treaty Bodies, ISHR (2017)

Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Abuses: A Guide for Victims and NGOs on Recourse Mechanisms by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) (2021)

Civil Society Access to International Oversight Bodies, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, International Justice Resource Center (2019)

Civil Society Access to International Oversight Bodies, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, International Justice Resource Center (2018)
General Comment No. 24 on States’ Obligations under ICESR in the Context of Business Activities, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) (2017)

Learning Collection: UN Human Rights Mechanisms, ISHR Academy

D. Consumer Advocacy

One way to pressure companies that are not responding to other forms of advocacy is to take your message directly to their consumers and enlist them as allies. Consumer advocacy involves motivating members of the public who are a company’s customers or potential customers to send a message to the company through petitions, letter-writing or social media. Some consumer advocacy campaigns involve boycotts, a public commitment not to buy the goods or services of a company, to pressure the company to change its behavior on a particular issue.

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about how the products they buy are made, including the conditions of workers and the social and environmental impacts of production throughout supply chains. Rising consumer concern means that companies that sell products directly to consumers are now much more vulnerable to negative publicity and pressure about their social and environmental practices. Companies are aware that damage to their brand reputation, including in their supply chain relationships, can have an impact on their sales and profitability.

You may want to consider a consumer advocacy campaign if there are companies in the investment and supply chain of the project you are challenging that:

• Individually or collectively have the ability to influence the project to make changes on the ground, usually because it’s an important buyer or source of financing
• Have a visible brand and care about their public image
• Have not responded positively to attempts at direct engagement.

This strategy can be used to target any actors in the investment and supply chain that have a public-facing brand and may be vulnerable to reputational damage in the eyes of its customers. This can include companies that sell products like cars or confections that contain components or ingredients that originate from harmful mines or plantations. It can also include banks or insurance companies that provide personal banking or insurance services to the public and also provide financial support to harmful projects.

Tip: Consumer advocacy and “ESG” funds

There is a growing movement of people who seek to only invest their money in companies with good environmental, social and governance (ESG) corporate policies and practices. They do not want to invest their money and profit from companies that contribute to human rights abuses or environmental destruction. These people collectively invest trillions of dollars globally in funds advertised as responsible or sustainable, known as ESG funds.

If you find through your investment chain research that the company contributing to human rights and environmental harms is listed in ESG funds, it may be worth conducting media advocacy, especially social media campaigns, that alert potential customers of those funds about the harmful company in its portfolio. This may trigger actual or potential customers of the ESG fund to write to the fund manager, but more likely, the negative publicity itself will make the fund manager pay attention because of the reputational damage and potential of losing customers. You can use our ESG Fund Tracker to find out if the company you are targeting is listed in an ESG fund.

The first step in a consumer advocacy campaign is to raise awareness among consumers about the issues your campaign seeks to address and inspire them to get involved. This can be a daunting task for a small organization that isn’t based in the countries where the target consumers are, so you should look for allies that have a presence in those countries and that specialize in this type of campaigning.

The following international organizations have run effective consumer campaigns and may be worth contacting for support:

• 350.org
• ActionAid International
• Avaaz
• Friends of the Earth
• Rainforest Action Network
• SumofUs

These are steps you can take to start building a consumer campaign:

• Set up a website and social media accounts with information about your campaign. The website and/or profile can provide information about the issues, and name the companies involved. They can ask people to take actions, like send letters, sign petitions, or tweet with particular messages using the companies’ handles (usernames). Check out the website of the StopEACOP campaign for ideas.
• Make a compelling video that exposes the complicity of your advocacy target in causing social and environmental harms and post it to your website and to YouTube. Spread the link through social media. As an example, see this video produced by the Cambodian Clean Sugar Campaign.
• Reach out to the media in the countries where the consumers live and inform them about your campaign, including through a media conference and media release when you launch it. See Media Advocacy for more guidance on how to ‘pitch’ the story effectively.

Make sure that your materials include very clear and specific campaign goals. The goals should reflect the community’s demands, but might also include the broader issues at stake, such as ending land grabbing in your country or promoting inclusive and clean development. The StopEACOP Campaign, for example, aims to stop the construction of a massive oil pipeline through Uganda and Tanzania. It also seeks to promote sustainable energy alternatives to the oil and gas industry in East Africa.

Let consumers know precisely what actions they can take. This could be signing a petition, sharing specific posts on social media, writing a letter to the CEO or directors of the company, or even staging a protest outside company offices or stores. Be sure that you provide consumers with a clear message to send in their action and tell them exactly to whom they should direct the message. You can use the online petition sites by Avaaz or Change.org to get a petition started and mobilize support.

Tip: To boycott or not to boycott?

The oldest consumer advocacy tactic is a boycott. This is a call to stop buying the goods and services sold by the targeted company. Traditional boycotts are aimed at getting a company to lose business, which pressures it to make the change that the campaigners are seeking. There are a lot of different opinions about whether boycotts are effective or not, but most observers agree that to make an impact takes a lot of time, dedication and a lot of boycotters!

There is a risk that a boycott will not attract a lot of consumers and that the company will take this to mean that its consumers don’t care about the issue. On the other hand, calling for a boycott can sometimes be an effective way to get the media interested and obtain valuable publicity for your cause. One study, which examined 221 boycotts between 1990 and 2005, found companies were more likely to give in to a boycott campaign’s demand when the issue attracted a great amount of press coverage. The study also found that companies gave in to demands when they feared damage to their reputation, rather than because of the threat of lost sales — though the two are often linked.

E. Shareholder Advocacy

Coming Soon.

F. Media Advocacy

Coming Soon.

Admin Notes: For an alternative layout of similar strategies, please visit: Dashboard | Accountability Toolkit