Human Rights Website Spotlights Conduct of Over 5600 Companies

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHR) launched its multi-lingual, re-designed website. The site shines a spotlight on the human rights conduct of over 5600 companies globally: it includes advances they are making, allegations of human rights abuse, and how they are responding to concerns.

Key new features include:

• Full navigation and homepages in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish;
•  “Big Issue” areas on topics ranging from information technology and human rights, to the UN Guiding Principles and calls for a binding international treaty;
• A searchable record of over 2000 approaches to companies, inviting them to respond to allegations of human rights abuse (with a global response rate of 70%);
• Commentary and blog posts by BHR’s global team, and easily-accessible regional and sector-specific briefing papers; and
• An effective search so users can get quickly to what they need.

Save Lamu Forum on Human and Environmental Rights Monitoring

On Saturday October 5th Steph Booker and Maya Sikand from Natural Justice presented at a Forum hosted by Save Lamu on Human and Environmental Rights Monitoring in Lamu Town. Participants of the meeting included members of the Lamu community from the Islands and Mainland as well as representatives from communities along the LAPSSET corridor. 

Natural Justice gave a presentation on 'What is Human and Environmental Rights Monitoring?'. Participants then separated into groups according to region, and began documenting changes they have witnessed in their areas. This was an important first step in collecting information, and understanding what sort of questions are asked during human rights monitoring. It is hoped that this forum is the beginning of a wider effort at human rights monitoring training for community organisations along the LAPSSET corridor. Such documentation is an important tool when making a case about human or environmental rights abuses against companies or the government.

Presentations were also made by Sarah Singh from Accountability Counsel and Mohammed Ramadhan from the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights on national and international grievance mechanisms. Save Lamu have initiated creative ways to bring all the information about changes in the communities to one central place, for example through text messages.