'P&O Ferries, Business and Human Rights', 24 March 2022

"Today the House of Commons Select Committee on Business, Energy, Innovation and Skills begins an inquiry into the P&O Ferries scandal, jointly with the Select Committee on Transport.   This should provide an opportunity for corporate executives to account publicly for their decisions and their alleged failure to comply with various legal standards, most notably the failure to inform and consult the trade unions of their decision to dismiss workers for reasons of redundancy.

But it will also provide an opportunity for the Committees to hear from both the government and the company about other matters, not least the implementation and application of the human rights principles by which companies are supposed to be bound.  The P&O announcement raises big questions once again about the effectiveness of a wide variety of so-called soft law instruments as a means of ensuring that global corporations behave in a socially responsible way.

Pre-eminent amongst these instruments are the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) approved in 2011 (the so-called Ruggie principles after their author).  These seek to impose obligations on governments to protect against human rights abuses; on corporations to respect internationally recognised human rights; and on States to ‘ensure as part of their duty to protect against business-related human rights abuse’ that those affected have access to an effective remedy.

The principles require national governments to develop an action plan to promote their implementation, which the British government proudly claims to be the first to have done.  This can be found on the BEIS website, with the government’s implementation document claiming implausibly that ‘the promotion of business, and the respect for human rights, go hand in hand’.  Not only that:  ‘The ‘golden thread’ of safeguards in society that are good for human rights – democratic freedoms, the rule of law, good governance, transparency, property rights and civil society – also provide fertile conditions for private sector led growth’..."