Moving the dial on corporate accountability

Corporations, at least in the geographical north, face a watershed moment. A new generation is entering the workplace expecting more of employers. Commitments to climate change, sustainability and social factors such as preventing modern slavery, enhancing working conditions and diversity and inclusion measures (often brought together under the soubriquet of ESG – environmental, social and governance factors) require more thought be given to corporate behaviours.

This intriguing collection of essays investigates the extent to which corporates and other economic actors can be held to account for involvement in human rights abuses. The question is set in the context of oppressive regimes and the truth and reconciliation processes that, in the last 50 years, have commonly been used to try to resolve the deep-seated schisms of the emergent society.

Using the metaphor of Archimedes’ lever, the papers make the collective argument that cataloguing experience from around the world plus changes in societal mores can extend the ‘lever’ and move the ‘fulcrum’, meaning the pressure required before economic actors are made responsible is much reduced. Where ‘other forms of accountability [are]...taken into account, such as naming and shaming by truth commissions’, there is both a magnified reputational impact on the actor and a future deterrent.

Finding a link between complicity in human rights abuses and the current discussion about ESG issues may seem incongruous, but similar techniques contribute to establishing responsibility (moving the fulcrum closer to the ‘weight’ of accountability, to continue with Archimedes’ metaphor): work towards a political and social culture that seeks to hold business to account while exploring legal options, particularly innovative ways of bringing challenge. The consequence of such a position is that top-down regulation may not provide the whole answer, although it is clearly part of the process; interesting in the context of increased international regulation around ESG matters. There must still be local actors willing to challenge in a society willing to support them.

This is an insightful and wide-ranging series of papers with a compelling theme, based around case studies of the Nuremberg trials, Brazilian military rule, Columbian civil conflict and South African apartheid. Together, they create a comparative record of where and how economic actors faced the consequences of their involvement with such regimes and, conversely, where and why they escaped censure – and what could be done to avoid such an outcome in the future.

Tom Proverbs-Garbett is a solicitor