INGOs As “Justice Enablers” for Corporate Human Rights Harms?

Access to remedy, accountability, and justice for human rights harms arising from business activities and development projects is a central concern in the field of Business and Human Rights (BHR). According to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, civil society organizations (including International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs)) and human rights defenders “have a critical role to play in facilitating access to effective remedies. They are often “justice enablers” for the victims of corporate human rights abuses” (UN Working Group, 2017), tasked in part with translating and sharing relevant knowledge on remedy, and supporting those seeking remedy in their efforts. Drawing from scholarship, primary sources, and reflections from the author’s time as an INGO practitioner, this paper critically examines the role of INGOs as “justice enablers” in the context of seeking remedy outside of court for corporate human rights abuses. It focuses on three central questions:

• How is the role of “justice enabler” imagined for INGOs in this context, both by themselves and by others involved?
• How might they fill that role effectively and ethically? What are the challenges in doing so?
• How do practices of power by corporate actors undermine their justice-enabling efforts?

Having access to and experience with relevant “epistemic goods” (Fricker, 2007), namely information related to rights, and to technical and strategic information about engaging in various remedial mechanisms, INGOs may be seen as distributors of those goods. Being tasked with addressing power imbalances in this role, INGOs must also grapple with their potential complicity in reproducing harmful power dynamics (Knuckey, et.al, 2020). This is particularly important, given practices of power commonly employed by corporate actors include framing INGOs negatively (Fuchs and Lederer, 2007). The paper considers how INGOs might, and should, try to navigate their role in facilitating access to remedy, accountability, and justice.