Human rights: education and implementation in a commercial organisation

This case study explored the process of incorporating human rights into the operation of an international commercial organisation. Constructing a dialogue to bridge the gap between human rights discourse and commercial realities, this case study identified the unique roles required to develop dialogue and created a model as a diagnostic and educational tool. The roles specific to human rights consulting, of Interpreter, Champion and Enabler afforded effective penetration into the participating industry partner's operational levels. These roles emerged from the process of constructing a human rights discourse and tensions therein where the existing theory of organisational change and consulting was found to be inadequate for human rights intervention. Based on the data of industry partner's existing practices and human rights concerns and on the process of collecting and analysing this data, the model for education and implementation was constructed. It is a flexible tool for examining human rights practices from bottom up as well as top down of an organisation. This research showed that having a comprehensive picture of the complexities involved sas an effective method of exploration and making sense of human rights education and implementation in a multinational industrial setting. The construction of the roles and of the model relied on the central premise of willingness of a multinational corporation to examine its practices and take an autonomous position of corporate citizenship and responsibility. This was consistent with the participatory research design of the study. Theretically this research challenges the appropriateness of traditional organisational change concepts when dealing with human rights; provides a diagnostic and educational tool for human rights consulting; and points to further research in this area