Human Rights at Sea: ESG gloss or a critical business requirement?

It covers not just the wider maritime industry, but the global fishing industry, migrant and refugee movement and the protections for all those individuals living, working, and transiting at sea. Daily, the numbers estimated by HRAS globally at sea are circa 30 million persons.

There is both an emerging and clear need for greater state, corporate and individual awareness, education and the concerted application of established human rights protections throughout the maritime environment, including the supporting supply chains which move 90% of the world’s goods by sea that is undertaken by a workforce equivalent to the size of the population of the City of Glasgow, Scotland.

Lack of public transparency, accountability and effective remedy for victims without them being gagged by legal actions and/or remedies, remains endemic across sea-borne activities spanning from the high-water mark out to the distant water fleets operating in international waters.

Abandonment, murder, unexplained disappearances, maritime crime, stowaways, serious sexual offences and organ trafficking are just some of the egregious matters that HRAS deals with. This is often set against a wall of corporate silence, malaise by states authorities unless called out, a lack of transparency around the identification of abusers alongside a culture of impunity by owners, managers, agents and recruiters.

Enforcement actions stemming from port, flag and coastal state legislation that can be publicly reported is a key pathway to increasing the deterrent effect against abusers, thereby upholding victim’s rights and the international rule of law at sea.

Learning objectives:

• Why established fundamental human rights law, related instruments and protections and the international rule of law must neither be avoided nor ignored by corporate business
• The consequences of failures to enforce effective remedy and the current lack of necessary deterrent effect as set against a culture of impunity and ESG ‘gloss’ within annual reporting cycles
• How and why independent civil society organisations can be an enabler as opposed to a hindrance to increase corporate awareness and accountability, responsible data gathering and developing transparent good practice

Duration: 43 minutes