"Myanmar military business sketch alerts investors", 14 August 2019

The United Nations Human Rights Council, charged last year with investigating the Myanmar army's (Tatmadaw) business empire as the biggest single corporate owner amid findings of abuses and war crimes in three states, presented a complex construct of domestic and investor ties to be rolled back and unwound altogether under diplomatic and commercial imperatives.

...Senior generals leading the two main Myanmar Economic Holdings (MEHL) and Cooperation (MEC) conglomerates are already under personal international sanctions and asset freezes, and the UN Council's work, to be debated at the September General Assembly, is designed to reinforce the military's isolation.

.... A formal boycott could be adopted at the UN plenary next month, as the United States and European Union continue to crack down over the generals’ absence of accountability for the mass Rohingya displacement.

...The UN has guiding principles on business and human rights supplemented by Global Compact provisions, and separate codes were prepared by the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD sets out a due diligence framework for conflict minerals and overall human rights supply chain integrity, with another convention outlining anti-bribery and corruption steps....

...The UN study concludes that forced labor and sexual violence are routine in mining areas, and that Rakhine development projects to "erase the Rohingya" may implicate the Tatmadaw and associated businesses in war crimes. Dozens of overseas partners may be drawn in indirectly, and it urges investors, consumers and donors to end all engagement inviting these risks and tragedies for eventual extrication from the broader economic and financial sector regime.