Webinar: Engagement & Remedy Forum for Responsible Business Conduct 2022

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights set access to remedy as one of the key three pillars, and urges business enterprises to “establish or participate in effective operational-level grievance mechanisms for individuals and communities who may be adversely impacted.” To that end, Business and Human Rights Lawyers Network Japan and the Global Compact Network Japan led an initiative with a variety of stakeholders and experts to develop the “Engagement & Remedy Guidelines” which embodies the remedy principle, and publicly announced it at this Forum in 2020. And last fiscal year, at the Forum in 2021, an intention to establish a collective operational-level grievance mechanism in Japan was formally expressed. 

In this fiscal year, we began developing two projects which are interrelated with each other. One, which is led by the LRQA Sustainability, is to establish the first collective grievance center within the Japan Electronics and Information Technology industries Association (JEITA). The other, led by BHR Lawyers, is to develop an “Engagement & Remedy Support Program” which aims to support mediation during the grievance processes. 

Today, we are happy to announce that both of these projects are completed. At this Forum, we would like to explain the detail of what we call the “Japan Center for Engagement and Remedy on Business and Human Rights”, and hear opinion and comments from experts. We will also invite distinguished guests from Japan and abroad, including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and share the latest development on business and human rights.