Evaluating the Effectiveness of Non-Judicial Remedies for Victims of Corporate Human Rights Abuses

Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, non-judicial grievance mechanisms  (NJGMs)  must  provide  for  “effective  remedy”  for  corporate  human  rights violations. What this means is subject to substantial debate. Is it enough that aggrieved parties agree to an outcome?

Largely absent from global debates about remedy in company-community mediations have been the voices of aggrieved parties themselves. This report aimed to provide a platform for the perspectives of community members – what remedy means to them, and how they assess whether or not it has been achieved. Specifically, the report included two case studies, one of a community in East Africa and another in South America, where mediations between the companies alleged to have committed harm and the affected communities were conducted and deemed successful.

First, the research included the stories of community members at the two sites where alleged corporate harm was done, complaints were filed with dispute resolution mechanisms and admitted by those mechanisms, mediation took place, and agreement was reached.   The team then drew connections across the two contexts, drawing insights on what communities themselves consider effective remedy. Finally, the team considered the findings in light of existing standards for remedy, and proposed new frameworks through which to consider what defines effective remedy.