The United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on business and human rights John Ruggie is currently carrying out a review to test the Principles for non-judicial, company-level mechanisms set out in his 2008 and 2009 reports to the UN Human Rights Council. One of the sectors that are looked into is the the electronics sector. The pilot project under review is the project involving Hewlett Packard, two if its suppliers and the Chinese labour rights group SACOM.
The United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on business and human rights John Ruggie is currently carrying out a review to test the Principles for non-judicial, company-level mechanisms set out in his 2008 and 2009 reports to the UN Human Rights Council. The Principles require that such mechanisms be:
- legitimate,
- accessible,
- predictable,
- equitable,
- rights-compatible,
- transparent
- and based in dialogue and/or mediation.
The review will involve five companies on four continents and from five different sectors: mining, apparel, electronic products, oil and gas, and food.
For the electronics sector, the company involved is Hewlett Packard. The project under review is the pilot project on workers rights training and grievance mechanisms that Hewlett Packard recently carried out with SACOM and to of HP's suppliers in China. The HP pilot project will be reviewed to see how it aligns with the Ruggie Principles for non-judicial, company-level mechanisms. The review report will be complete in early 2010.
The International Organisation of Employers, the International Chamber of Commerce and Business and the Industry Advisory Committee of the OECD support this project.
The project is coordinated by the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School in collaboration with some facilitators. For the work with Hewlett packard this is a research team from the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program led by Stephan Sonnenberg.
