Using Human Rights Mechanisms

Regional human rights bodies

Africa, the Americas and Europe have regional human rights courts and commissions that may be worth using as part of your advocacy strategy. Individuals and 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.

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:

1. 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.

2. If the state has signed up to the Optional Protocol of the ICCPR or ICESCR, you can submit a complaint, called an individual communication, to the relevant treaty 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.