The ‘S’ of ESG: Corporations and human rights violations
16-03-2023 | 16:00 - 18:00
Tropenmuseum Mauritskade 63 | 1092 AD Amsterdam
Educatief
Voor leden, introducees en onze partners | Gratis
As part of the discussions in the House of Representatives on the Corporate Responsibility Act, the VCO Knowledge Table on ESG announced that it is hosting a meeting on March 16 on corporations and human rights violations, in light of the roles the compliance officer has.
Click here to register!
In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on ESG within the business community. This is also reflected in the increasing demand for additional human rights legislation:
- Already more than 3,800 Dutch companies such as banks, accounting firms and law firms are required to report when human rights violations involve unusual transactions.
- There is already the Child Labor Duty of Care Act in the Netherlands since 2019.
- Internationally operating Dutch companies have already been bound by laws to prevent and combat human trafficking (Modern Slavery Acts) in the United Kingdom since 2015 and in Australia since 2018.
- Our neighboring countries France (Loi Sur le Devoir de Vigilance des Multinationales 2017) and Germany (Lieferkettengesetz2021) as well as, albeit further afield, California (California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2012) have already implemented local legislation on this topic.
- In the Netherlands and at the European level, discussions about passing legislation aimed at protecting even more human rights are in full swing.
Child and human trafficking, contrary to popular belief, also takes place in the Netherlands and with the involvement of Dutch companies. The complexity of corporate value chains makes visibility and accountability for (preventing) gross human rights violations difficult. What should companies, both financial institutions and non-financial institutions, do now and soon under the expected legislation? These and other questions will be addressed during the meeting in which the following speakers will explain the various aspects regarding human rights violations by companies:
Prof.dr.mr. Wim Huisman, professor of criminology at VU University Amsterdam and head of the VU School of Criminology. He is founder and board member of the European Working Group on Organizational Crime (EUROC) of the European Society of Criminology, co-editor-in-chief of Crime, Law & Social Change and co-chair of the ASC Division of White-Collar and Corporate Crime; Wim reports the findings of investigations into all cases in which companies have been accused of involvement in the grossest human rights violations since World War II. Wim shows what kind of companies are involved, who their “partners in crime” are and how they get involved in these serious crimes. He shows what high-risk industries and situations are. He further discusses possible motivations and justifications of the companies involved and their directors.
Mr.dr.drs. Jill Coster van Voorhout, Associate Professor of Transnational Criminal Law at the University of Amsterdam. She leads NWO-funded interdisciplinary research on undermining crime in a (financial) public-private partnership, COMCRIM, and is also program director of the master’s in international and transnational criminal justice with Columbia Law School. She is also a Research Fellow at theAmsterdam Center for Criminal Justice (ACCJ), at the Amsterdam Center on International Law (ACIL) and at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS); Jill discusses recent convictions of not only corporations but even their executives for crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking. Sometimes it might be thought that companies are only involved in this far down the chain in foreign countries. But criminal responsibility is getting closer, even for Dutch companies.
After the presentations, there will be room for discussion and questions with the two speakers over drinks.
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