Respecting human rights using the Accountability Framework

To learn about the challenges facing the cattle and soy sectors in Brazil in achieving responsible supply chains, members of the AFi team made a field visit to the country in March 2024. Forced labour, land grabbing, and other human rights violations have been known to be associated with both sectors, and conversations with multiple stakeholders indicated that these remain prevalent.

This suggests that, while commodity buyers are increasingly setting human rights commitments, these commitments are not always cascading to the ground level. To implement their human rights policies, companies will need to take additional steps, which can be guided by the Accountability Framework.

The interconnection of deforestation and human rights violations

Respect for human rights is an integral aspect of responsible business conduct. It is also a crucial step to achieving deforestation- and conversion-free supply chains. Clearance of forests and other ecosystems to produce agricultural commodities is regularly preceded by, or leads to, the violation of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and workers. Similarly, deforestation and conversion are often enabled by human rights violations.

Fortunately, companies are increasingly recognising this interconnection, and are setting human rights commitments more and more often.

For example, the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark 2022 found that 84% of companies in the food and agriculture sector have publicly committed to respecting the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the International Bill of Human Rights, and 56% have committed to the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) or OECD Guidelines. This is up from 40% in 2020.

Alleged human rights violations in Brazilian supply chains

Despite these improvements, human rights are not sufficiently protected on the ground in sourcing regions. Conversations between the AFi team and Brazilian companies, NGOs, and industry associations in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes described ongoing human rights issues.

In the cattle sector, for example, forced labour has been documented: a total of 2023 cases of slave labour were identified during the period 1995-2022 – almost half (46%) of detected cases of slave labour in Brazil –   leading to the rescue of over 17,000 workers. Employers use coercive recruitment practices such as advanced payments to trap workers into debt bondage, and retain identification documents to keep them from leaving.

Meanwhile, Indigenous Peoples and local communities face the loss of their land and access to resources as a result of agricultural expansion. Evictions may include measures to gradually force communities off their land by closing down of schools or hospitals, or by blocking roads. Evictions may also take on direct coercion, including harassment and violence towards those who resist leaving. The spraying of agrochemicals adjacent to or within communities negatively impacts Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ livelihoods by polluting their soil and water supplies.

Where human rights are impacted, it is important that grievance mechanisms are known and accessible to those impacted so that they can raise concerns and have them resolved. However, organisations in Brazil mentioned that those affected by land grabs and other human rights violations are often unaware of available grievance mechanisms.

Using the Accountability Framework to protect human rights

To address these challenges, companies need to take additional steps to ensure that their supply chains are free of human rights violations, and that their commitments have cascaded through the supply chain. To do this, companies need to assess, address, and monitor compliance with their human rights commitments. To support accountability, they should also report on progress.

There are several ways using the Accountability Framework can support companies with these actions:

• Identify adverse human rights risks and impacts: To conduct an assessment of risks and impacts to human rights that may be associated with a company´s supply chains, companies should map their supply chain and identify their suppliers, sourcing areas, and potentially-affected rightsholders. The Operational Guidance on Supply Chain Management details best practice for mapping the supply chain and conducting risk assessments.
• Act on human rights risks and impacts: Companies should address impacts by engaging with suppliers through codes of conduct, contracts, technical support, and other measures. They should also use their leverage with suppliers to help prevent the violations from happening. Use the how-to guide on writing a supplier code to see how to put policies into supplier action.  
• Remediate adverse impacts: Companies should have grievance mechanisms in place that follow the UNGP’s eight effectiveness criteria. They should also require and verify that their suppliers have effective grievance mechanisms in place. When a company is linked to adverse impacts, it should use its leverage to require, support, or incentivise its suppliers to remediate harms. The Operational Guidance on Remediation and Access to Remedy provides guidance on how companies can help ensure access to remedy in their supply chains.
• Report on progress: The Accountability Framework encourages companies to report on processes and outcomes related to human rights using tools such as the UNGP Reporting Framework. The UNGP Reporting Framework requires the company to identify and describe salient risks to human rights connected to its operations and supply chains. Companies should report on efforts taken to avoid or mitigate adverse impacts to those rights, and on how and when the remediation of harms to human rights has been carried out. The Operational Guidance on Reporting, Disclosure, and Claims provides more details on each of these aspects.

To learn more about the Accountability Framework’s positions and guidance on setting and implementing goals to respect human rights, read the topic summary on human rights. To access training modules on these topics, visit the AFi e-learning platform.