Business and Human Rights nexus : Rana Plaza Incident
With the growing influence of transnational corporations, the relationship between business and human rights is under constant academic and political attention. From forced labour working in the garment factories to the exploitation of native people in Zimbabwe by Chinese mining companies, corporate human rights violations are rapidly increasing. Today, the social impact of businesses has expanded rapidly beyond the national borders. Business-related policies and operations significantly impact the communities as they are capable of breaching human rights or contributing towards their protection. The Rana Plaza Incident in Bangladesh in 2013 speaks the shocking truth of business related human rights abuses. In April 24, 2013 more than 1,125 people died and 2,000 were injured when eight story building was collapsed in the capital of Bangladesh. The building originally build for the shopping complex was filled with more than 3,000 workers working in sweatshops under inhumane conditions producing garments for retail brands such as Walmart, Primark, Mango and Joe fresh. The day before the building collapse, some inspections were made about the building’s poor condition where the banks and other stores were immediately closed due to the health and safety concerns. But RMG ( readymade garment ) workers were refused to leave their workstations by managers and were forced to work under unsafe conditions to meet the deadlines set by the buyers. In an ideal and responsible world, if the state and the corporations would have implemented their duty to protect and respect human rights then it is entirely possible that this disaster would have been prevented. RMG workers have been victim of human rights abuses for many years and have faced abusive factory conditions such as forced overtime, physical and verbal abuse, sexual assault by managers, lack of hygienic working conditions, workplace gender discrimination, non-payment of wages and benefits, forced overtime, intimidation and threats against unionisation. The abusive working conditions in Bangladesh garment factories are the byproduct of government and corporation failures. Responsibility of corporations to respect human rights comes from the UNGP’s. Major companies also demands from the garment factories to follow the codes and conduct but on the other end they fail to effectively monitor human rights violations in their supply chains such as garment factories and subcontractors factories. According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, if the process of due diligence was mandatory on corporation then that would have made a significant difference in the case of Rana Plaza incident. Production would not have taken place under unsafe working conditions, the effective investigation would have ended the forced labour, encouragement of the right to organise unions by corporations would have lead to the collective voice of workers against the factory contractors. This incident teaches us that this is high time for corporations to consider the human rights due diligence in every step of their business decision. The state plays a crucial role in protecting human rights against third parties but the enforcement of these duties in LCD countries like Bangladesh are not always straight forward. The government approach to these human rights issues is summarised by a member of Bangladesh’s human rights commission where he condemns the lack of proper mechanism to hold politicians and powerful identities accountable for violation of human rights. He furthers highlight the socio-political environment in Bangladesh and the failure of effective implementation of UNGP’s under this environment. Pointing at the sad reality of least developed countries, states unwillingness to make strict changes in their political and legal systems is the root cause of human rights violations in the host states by big corporations from global south. After this disaster, the international community came together with legally enforceable Bangladesh Accord ( fire and building safety ), a legally binding agreement between companies and trade unions to make RMG factories safe. More than 200 international companies agreed to build safer factories for factory workers. In 2021, the new agreement ( International Accord for Health and Safety in Textile and Garment industry ) was unveiled to replace the original agreement. This brings the hope that in future we will not witness another shocking incident of business related human rights abuse. There is a shared model of responsibility between state and corporations towards the human rights abuses within the hard law and soft law hybrid framework. It is important that in the current international order, The promotion of human rights which is inherently dominated by the former colonizers and imperialist powers should move beyond these powers towards the inclusion of global south which is primarily impacted by the business and human rights nexus.