Executive Director and Board member, CSO Network Japan
Sustainable public procurement has become an important issue in Japan. We have witnessed that the Japanese government has committed to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that includes “Promoting public procurement practice that are sustainable” in the target 7 of Goal 12. The Tokyo Organizing Committee for Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) has announced its respect for the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and developed a sustainable sourcing code for goods and services to be procured for the 2020 games based on the UNGPs. The TOCOG has established a Grievance Mechanism, which will receive reports of non-compliance with the sourcing code and respond with a view to resolving reported cases promptly in a fair and transparent manner. In addition, the Government of Japan has launched the development of a National Action Plan on the UNGPs and public procurement is one of the core issues in the Plan. With all mentioned above in mind, public procurement is expected to be a strategic policy instrument toward achieving a sustainable society by integrated approaches of social, environmental and economic aspects in Japan (Figure 1)
Figure 1 Impact of Sustainable Procurement (Procura+ Manual[1])
In this post, Eamonn Conlon considers whether the 2014 EU Procurement Directives provide a basis for liability of public buyers or their suppliers for severe labour rights abuses experienced by workers, including modern slavery, using a construction case study. While the post examines Irish implementing legislation in particular, much of the analysis is of broader application across EU member states.
1. Introduction
According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) governments should promote respect for human rights by those with whom they do business. They should also take steps to ensure that their domestic judicial mechanisms are effective as a route for victims of business-related human rights abuses to access a legal remedy. As this post explores, these norms raise interesting questions for EU procurement law.
The EU’s 2014 directives governing general public sector, utilities, and concessions procurement include two ‘principles of procurement’ (art 18 public sector procurement Directive, art 36 utilities Directive and arts 3 and 30 concessions Directive). The first principle requires contracting authorities to treat ‘economic operators’ equally and without discrimination and to act transparently and proportionally. Economic operators are suppliers of goods, services and works on the market.
The second principle requires member states to take appropriate steps to ensure that, in performing public contracts, economic operators comply with applicable obligations in the field of environmental, social, and labour law including the ILO core conventions. The ILO’s eight ‘core’ conventions prohibit forced labour, child labour, and workplace discrimination, and provide for freedom of association, the right to organise, and collective bargaining. All EU member states have ratified them.
EU Directives are addressed to member states, who must give them effect in their domestic law. Member states have responded in different ways to the new requirement to ensure compliance with ILO conventions by their suppliers. As reported on this blog by Théo Jaekel, the Swedish parliament rejected a government proposal to make core labour standards binding on public contractors. Norway (in the European Economic Area) requires public authorities to ‘have appropriate measures/procedures/routines to promote respect for fundamental rights through public procurement when there is a risk of violation of such rights.’[i] The UK, apart from Scotland, decided to avoid ‘gold plating’ its regulations and left adherence to the new principle of compliance with ILO core conventions as a matter for administrative measures.
Enacted to implement the 2014 public procurement Directive, Ireland’s 2016 public procurement regulations require economic operators to comply with applicable obligations under ILO core conventions in performing public contracts. Contracting authorities must, by their contracts, require such compliance. Ireland has matching terms for procurement of concessions and by publicly-owned utilities.
In the rest of this post I look at whether Ireland’s new regulations under the 2014 Directives provide a remedy—by establishing potential liability—for infringement of core labour rights in public supply chains, in line with the UNGPs. But first I consider whether the Directives themselves provide or require such a remedy in all EU member states.
By Anna Gorma & Patrycja Krupinska Project Managers, London Universities Purchasing Consortium – University of Greenwich BHRE Modern Slavery Project
In April 2017, the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights stated that “If the Government expects businesses to take human rights issues in their supply chains seriously, it must demonstrate at least the same level of commitment in its own procurement supply chains.” Unfortunately, modern slavery in public procurement remained absent from the Modern Slavery Act 2015, as highlighted by submissions by the Learning Lab to the JCHR. The Act itself omits public bodies from the requirement of publishing a modern slavery statement and instead focuses on ‘commercial entities’. This is despite public procurement making up 13.7% of the UK GDP in 2015 making public bodies into a major influence.
Initially by creating an unclear air about who is supposed to report, many public bodies were left unconcerned with reporting or further investigating their supply chains. This mirrors the position across many other jurisdictions where public buyers are uncertain as regards scope for measures to promote respect for human rights in their supply chains.
This following article is based on our research at the Business, Human Rights and the Environment Research Group (BHRE) at the University of Greenwich. Firstly, it explains what s.54, Transparency in Supply Chains (TISC) provision of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is, which organisations it applies to and the legal reporting requirements. Secondly, it includes a summary of general reporting trends seen among public sector bodies, that is, universities and local authorities.
By Nicole Vander Meulen Legal and Policy Associate, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable
On November 13, 2017 the Learning Lab hosted a one-day workshop in Pretoria, South Africa, bringing together relevant stakeholders to explore ways to operationalize the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa through public procurement laws, policies, and practices. The workshop was co-organized by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), and the African Procurement Law Unit (APLU).
The workshop included a short morning session on public procurement and human rights broadly, with the main focus of the day being on: 1) public procurement of private security and military services, and 2) public procurement and sustainable development. The presentations and discussion during these two sessions are briefly summarized below, and additional resources including the workshop concept note, agenda, and presentation slides are can be found here. Continue reading. “Learning Lab Workshop on Public Procurement and Human Rights in Africa”
The new Guide focuses on the whole process of public procurement and addresses in turn: eligibility criteria; binding supplier responsibility statements (to be signed by the highest responsible manager of the supplier); evaluation criteria; contract execution and management; and monitoring and follow-up of public contracts.
The Guide was developed during the passage of a new Public Procurement Law in Spain in 2017. The organisations responsible for the Guide and others working for human rights advocated for amendments to this procurement law. Our principal aim was that it should become illegal for state bodies to enter into supply contracts with companies that do not respect human rights. As we did not succeed in integrating this norm into the Spanish legislation, the Guide is more necessary than ever. The new Spanish procurement law does establish a wider range of possibilities and includes more social aspects compared to its predecessor, but what social organisations sought is still missing: the ability to exclude entirely those companies responsible for human rights abuses from public procurement procedures. Continue reading. “Catalonia: New Guide on Human Rights in Public Procurement”
By Linda Piirto Senior Advisor, Responsible Business Conduct, Ministry for Economic Affairs and Employment, Finland
Some years ago I was sitting in a small conference room in Brussels with a bunch of European colleagues – public procurement specialists and responsible business conduct enthusiasts – to hear how social aspects could be taken into account in public procurement. Unfortunately the message we heard wasn’t that encouraging: I got the impression that procurement units (and us representing the awareness-raising wing) weren’t encouraged to explore the topic since it was deemed too difficult.
I left that non-workshop feeling baffled, but not discouraged. For us Finns the option of not doing anything wasn’t really an option: there were already social expectations that public procurement should be responsible, both environmentally and socially. Once a strong expectation exists, we tend to think it’s better to explore how it could be executed in practice and provide guidance, rather than wait for “innovative” ways to interpret the procurement legislation to emerge in bulk. Continue reading. “Finland: New guidance on socially responsible public procurement spotlights practical solutions”
By The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)
The use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) worldwide is increasing. Since the early 1990s, the global private security industry has been expanding significantly in response to increasingly complex security environments, ranging from conflict or post-conflict situations to growing terrorism threats and humanitarian crises.
In the Latin America and Caribbean region for instance, at least 16,174 private security companies have been identified, with more than 2,450,000 legal employees working as security guards. Today it is not rare to have states with a higher ratio of private security personnel to police. PMSCs have adapted their services and operations to this context; nevertheless, some PMSCs have also attracted increasing international attention due to misconduct, human rights abuses, and violations of international humanitarian law.
By Jovana Stopic Jovana Stopic is a human rights expert, she has been working with Belgrade Centre for Human Rights on establishing human rights and business footprint in Serbia since 2013
As a candidate country for EU membership, Serbia has been in the process of accession negotiations since 2014. Negotiations were initiated on a number of chapters including Chapter 5 on public procurement and Chapter 23 covering fundamental rights. To enter into EU membership, amongst other requirements, Serbia is expected to ensure that EU legislation has been transposed across the board into Serbian law and that it is effectively implemented. This means that the accession process is currently the main reform engine in the country in all spheres of political and economic life. It also entails that the success of any advocacy activity is conditioned on its proximity to the priorities set for the EU integration agenda.
By Alison Elliott Senior Policy Adviser, UNICEF Australia
The business and human rights agenda has gathered pace over the last year in Australia.
Now, three on-going processes represent significant opportunities to strengthen Australian policy and legislation, including in the area of public procurement.
If seized, they offer a chance to better protect individuals and communities against adverse human rights impacts of business activity, reward leading companies and further support corporations to meet their responsibility to respect human rights.
