BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITIES, CONVERGING AGENDAS

Speech given to the Keidanren by Rory Mungoven,

Asia-Pacific Program Director,

Amnesty International

It is a great privilege to be able to address you on the subject of business and human rights, particularly against the backdrop of such political and economic uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific region.

I would like to extend to you the warm greetings of my Secretary General, Mr. Pierre Sane. Amnesty International remembers well the support the Keidanren lent to our hosting of our organisation’s international congress in Yokohama in 1991. I hope that my presence here today marks the beginning of even closer contact and cooperation between Amnesty International, the Keidanren and senior business leaders in Japan, both at the international level and through our very active, local membership chapter.

For those of you that are not familiar with Amnesty International and its work, I would like to make a few short introductory remarks.

Amnesty International is a worldwide campaigning organisation that works to promote all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience, ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners, eliminate the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners, end political killings and "disappearances", and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups.

Since our inception in 1961, we have grown into one of the world’s leading non-governmental organisations, with more than one million members in over 90 countries, one third of which are in APEC countries alone. We have had an active membership chapter here in Japan since 1970, which today plays an important leadership role in our organisation worldwide.

Amnesty International is impartial and independent of any government, political persuasion or religious creed. We do not support or oppose any government or political system, nor do we support or oppose the views of the victims whose rights we seek to protect.

When it comes to business and economic relations, we do NOT support or oppose punitive measures such as economic or other sanctions, disinvestments or boycotts. We do oppose military, security and police transfers – such as the sale of equipment or provision of training – WHERE this could contribute to serious human rights abuses. Most importantly, however, we look to business as having the responsibility and potential to play a powerful and positive role in the promotion and protection of human rights, both within their own operations and the community at large.

For many here today, it might seem unusual to have a non-governmental organisation, especially from the human rights field, addressing a business gathering. Indeed, contacts of this kind were probably unthinkable just a few years ago – not just because of attitudes on the part of the business community, but also because of the suspicion and hostility on the part of non-governmental organisations towards business.

But this is changing fast. The process of economic globalisation is seeing a fundamental transformation in the role of the nation state. Economic actors, such as businesses and international financial institutions, are playing an increasingly powerful role in determining how people live and how nation states interact.