Securing human rights through risk-management methods: breakthrough or misalignment? / Radu Mares.

This is a study of three authoritative instruments that promote a common idea: economic
activities and development should be conducted with respect for human rights. The World
Bank’s Framework, the International Financial Corporation’ Performance Standards and the
UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights are examined to get clarity on how human
rights risk management differs from more conventional management approaches. The focus
here is on prevention of human rights impacts. Do the three instruments employ approaches
adequate for handling human rights risks? To understand prevention one needs to reflect on
what makes human rights a particular type of impact and account for the regulatory context of
protecting human rights transnationally. The analysis identifies four ‘offsets’ through which
economic decision-makers can distort their human rights performance and place causal
observers at a disadvantage. Prevention becomes an issue of how to relate to ‘residual impacts’
on human rights. This article finds that the ‘hierarchy or mitigation’ and even ‘human rights
due diligence’ under illuminate the challenge. The proposal here is to add ‘reduction at source’
as a parameter of human rights risk management. The sources for this analysis are the three
instruments, and the practice of implementing organizations, particularly IFC projects, CAO
cases, impact assessments, and CSR reports. In conclusion, the potential for cross-fertilization
among instruments is genuine. Increased clarity on prevention of human rights impacts should
assist economic decision-makers in their risk management task and casual observers in
assessing their performance.