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Report

8 Jun 2020

Author:
Working Group on the National Action Plan on Business & Human Rights (Japan)

Japan: Stakeholders submit second letter of request for NAP development, calling for inclusion of COVID-19 impact

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Working Group on the National Action Plan (NAP)

"Second Letter of Request and 'Stakeholder Common Request (2nd)'", 2 June 2020

...The stakeholders believe that the government draft of the NAP (“Draft NAP”) published for the public comment procedure on 17 February 2020 did not fully reflect the First Letter of Request...

...[D]iscussion is needed for the NAP to be more relevant and more effective in response to the COVID19 crisis...

...We request that the government response reflects at least the minimum consensus of the stakeholders...in NAP in a meaningful and concrete manner and incorporate these requests with an appropriate mechanism to ensure they happen. We also ask that this second letter of request, including the Stakeholder Common Request, be put on the agendas of the 6th session of the working group meeting, the forthcoming advisory committee meeting and the meetings thereafter...

1. Reflect Stakeholder Common Request in the First Letter of Request...

2. Ensure stakeholder involvement within the system of NAP implementation, monitoring, and update...

A. Set up a system to go through the PDCA cycle for implementation and monitoring...

B. Ensure transparency and inclusiveness throughout the process...

C. Impact assessment / update process

3. Incorporate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on human rights and its response into the NAP...

...The human rights impacts of COVID-19, either domestic or overseas, include: increased unemployment, deteriorated working conditions, expanded hazardous labour (including child labour, forced labour and human trafficking), discriminatory treatment of non-regular and foreign workers, a strong adverse impact on the informal sector, as well as privacy intrusion due to digital surveillance. There have been and continues to be adverse impacts at home, especially against women and children due to unemployment and deteriorating working conditions...

We request the government reaffirm the rationale of the NAP formulation in the context of COVID-19’s socio-economic impact, domestically and globally. We also request that the government provide a practical policy in the NAP on how to utilise and implement the UNGPs, taking into account the challenges presented by COVID-19, and implement the NAP in line with this policy...

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