On 20 August, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) expressed the opinion that the two pending Bills on Human Rights and Environmental Protection for Sustainable Corporate Management (Bills No. 2210837 and 2213897, currently before the 22nd National Assembly; hereinafter "the Supply Chain Accountability Act") should be enacted without delay, as legislation that would codify companies' practice of their responsibility to respect human rights. KTNC Watch welcomes the NHRCK's opinion and urges the National Assembly to move immediately to enact the Supply Chain Accountability Act.
The following points in the opinion deserve particular attention.
First, on the scope of companies covered, the NHRCK stated that the scope of application under the current bills should, at a minimum, be retained. Both bills already exclude small and medium enterprises and limit coverage to companies above a certain size. The Commission explained that the scope should not be narrowed any further, since human rights due diligence is intended to harness the influence of companies at the top of supply chains to prevent, mitigate, and remedy human rights and environmental risks.
Next, on the standards for human rights and environmental due diligence, the NHRCK stated that the scope of human rights and environmental rights subject to due diligence should be defined with specificity, in line with international standards such as the International Bill of Human Rights, the fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and treaties Korea has acceded to or ratified. The Commission explained that if the human rights and environmental rights to be protected remain abstract, companies will struggle even to determine what they are meant to examine, and legal predictability will suffer as a result. This can be understood as saying that clarifying the scope on the basis of international standards is necessary for the law to be applied consistently in practice and to actually lead to remedy for victims.
On the scope of the supply chain, the NHRCK stated that the legislation should cover all direct and indirect relationships arising across the full range of a company's business activities. This is because defining the supply chain too narrowly risks undermining the effectiveness of human rights due diligence — which is meant to generate a chain of improvements throughout the supply chain — and could create blind spots in identifying human rights risks as well as gaps in accountability.
As for the scope of stakeholders, the NHRCK noted that this should include not only individuals and groups actually or potentially affected, but also organizations that advocate for or protect their rights and interests. In cases of business-related human rights violations, victims often find it difficult to deal directly with a company because of gaps in information and resources and fear of retaliation. This could be understood to mean that establishing channels through which such victims can be represented is essential to effectively guaranteeing companies' responsibility to respect human rights through meaningful stakeholder participation.
Finally, on the committee that handles disputes over human rights and environmental risks, the NHRCK stated that the number of members on the Committee on Business, Human Rights and the Environment (Human Rights and Environmental Dispute Mediation Committee) should be increased to ensure representativeness and expertise; that the Committee should be given authority to take emergency relief measures where serious and irreparable harm is imminent; and that provisions should be introduced to enable human rights and environmental experts and civil society organizations to participate substantively in the due diligence process. These points are either absent from the current bills or go further than what the bills provide, and they deserve full discussion as the legislative process moves forward.
Korean companies have a major impact on the lives of workers and local residents at home and abroad, and across global supply chains. Yet in reality, when corporate activity violates human rights or harms the environment, victims have no adequate channel through which to raise concerns or seek remedy. Requiring companies to prevent, conduct due diligence on, and take responsibility for human rights and environmental violations in their own supply chains is a minimum condition for protecting the dignity of workers and local residents and for building a society in which everyone can live with wellbeing. The Supply Chain Accountability Act is precisely the starting point for codifying that responsibility into law. At a time when Korean companies continue to face sanctions or disputes abroad over human rights issues such as forced labour, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights must be enshrined in law. There is no longer any reason to delay enactment of the Supply Chain Accountability Act.
Now that the NHRCK has set out not only the need for legislation but also concrete directions for improvement, the National Assembly must give the Commission's opinion serious and faithful consideration and, this time, complete the legislative process without fail.
KTNC Watch will continue to raise its voice with the National Assembly and the government so that the Supply Chain Accountability Act is enacted promptly — enabling companies to respect human rights throughout their domestic and international supply chains, and ensuring that victims can obtain real and effective remedies.
Note: "the Supply Chain Accountability Act" is KTNC Watch's own shorthand for the two pending mHREDD (mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence) bills (Bills No. 2210837 and 2213897), which the NHRCK's own English-language opinion refers to as the "Bills on Human Rights and Environmental Protection for Sustainable Corporate Management."
The full text of the NHRCK’s statement can be accessed at the link below.