"Open Letter to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights calling for greater inclusion of the marginalized communities in businesses," 09 June 2020

To: The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Entity For Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

On 9-11 June 2020, the United Nations Virtual Forum on Business and Human Rights Asia and the Pacific would be organized to discuss challenges and opportunities for advancing responsible business and human rights in the region. It would explore how existing vulnerabilities have been amplified and exposed by the crisis and discuss the need to view the crisis as an opportunity to drive change and build back better. On behalf of the impacted communities, the Extraterritorial Obligation Watch Coalition (ETO Watch) submits this Letter to the UNWG on Business and Human Rights and organizers to call for greater inclusion of the marginalized communities at risk and more considerable attention to the extraterritorial obligation of crossborder investors, including Thai investors abroad and human rights compliance.

Across ASEAN countries, there is growing concern over a lack of accountability for human rights violations associated with Thai outbound investments. Negative environmental and social impacts of these investments commonly include the destruction of livelihoods, land grabs, and forced evictions...The NHRCT played an active role in investigating Thailand's outbound investments and developed guiding recommendations to concretize the extraterritorial human rights obligations of the Thai state and non-state actors...The ETO Watch calls for strengthening the role of the national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in investigating cross-border investment such as the Thai investment in the neighboring countries.

The impacted communities have submitted several complaints regarding issues of land grabbing, enforced resettlement, and livelihood impacts caused by Thai investments—transboundary litigation used as a means for access to remedies in the home country (Thailand)...[T]he ETO Watch calls for the greater realization of the class action and transboundary litigation as an effective mechanism to remedies. The court should comply with the Economic and Social Council General Comment No. 24[3] that requires the States parties to remove substantive, procedural and practical barriers to remedies.

...The ETO Watch calls for greater recognition on legal binding standard that enforce extraterritorial obligation of the businesses. It should include provisions on the extraterritorial scope of due diligence regulation as well as liability for due diligence breaches.

We look forward to work with Thai and other governments and UN agency to ensure the extraterritorial obligation will be provided in the business and human rights across the region of Mekong.