This research project is conducted at the Institute for Business Ethics under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Florian Wettstein.
Colonial-era business and human rights injustices or harms is a subject that the BHR movement has not engaged in. The September 2019 petition to the UN special rapporteur, Fabián Salvioli, on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence raises this question. Kenyan communities, the Kipsigis and Talai, whose descendants were violently evicted from their land to make way for European settlers and some companies, petitioned the UN special rapporteur. Majority of the settlers left at the end of the colonial rule, but the companies remained and today, they (UK multinational corporations) own this land (under leasehold) where they continue to farm tea for export to Europe and beyond. Apart from land loss, those displaced continue to experience negative impacts compounding over the years and now seek a remedy. In March 2020, the Kenya National Land Commission (NLC) ruled that the land rightly belonged to the two communities and that the companies involved should issue an apology (NLC, 2020). But the companies have not shown any willingness to engage in dialogue on this matter.
While the issue of reparations for colonisation has gathered some attention under the debate regarding the remedy obligations of former colonial masters (OHCHR, 2019), businesses' responsibility for those that benefited from and continue to benefit from that legacy has not been discussed.
This research will grapple with the questions of why and what that responsibility should be. The foundation of the inquiry will be the United Nations-endorsed norms on business and human rights, the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework (PRR) (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2008), and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) (OHCHR, 2011).