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Access to effective remedy key for victims of corporate abuse
Komnas HAM received an average of 439 annual cases of human rights abuses by corporations from 2019 to 2021.
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Making space: Public order officers use heavy equipment to flatten illegal buildings on Jl. Tegar Beriman in Cibinong, West Java, on Oct. 2, 2023. The demolition is part of the Bogor regency administration’s rehabilitation of public spaces.
(Antara/Yulius Satria Wijaya)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo finally issued late last month the long-awaited Presidential Regulation No. 60/2023 concerning the National Strategy on Business and Human Rights. This marks one of the first steps taken by the government to express its commitment and recognition of the need to integrate human rights values into everyday business practices. The regulation was signed on Sept. 23, less than two weeks after conflict began in Rempang Island near Batam, where locals resisted government efforts to evict them to make way for a national strategic project.
For one, this regulation will ensure the positive development of a more ethically conscious and responsible business ecosystem because it stipulates the three pillars of the 2011 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).
The three pillars are protect, respect and remedy. Each defines concrete, actionable steps governments and companies must take to meet their respective duties and responsibilities to prevent human rights abuses in company operations and to provide remedies if such abuses take place.
The essence of the three pillars of the UNGPs are stipulated in an addendum to the regulation, which acknowledges the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights and fundamental freedoms; the role of business enterprises as specialized organs of society performing specialized functions, and their requirement to comply with all prevailing laws and to respect human rights; and the need for rights and obligations to be matched to appropriate and effective remedies when breached.
Indonesia’s growing economy is a result of increasing business and investment activities. But business operations may affect human rights, namely community rights to land, and labor rights. The violent clashes between law enforcement officers and the locals in Rempang represent only one of many land conflicts related to investment projects.
The third pillar of the UNGPs outlines how remedies may be in the form of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. Judicial mechanisms essentially refer to court litigations. While they are punitive and provide legally binding decisions, litigations to resolve business and human rights cases are notorious for being costly and lengthy, prolonging the provision of compensation.
In early 2022, a class-action lawsuit was filed against government agencies and eight pharmaceutical firms by the parents of children who died of kidney failure from consuming contaminated cough syrup. Each family is expecting a compensation of up to Rp 3.4 billion (US$217,278). The case is still in process.
