Overview of a Selection of Existing Accountability Mechanisms for Handling Complaints and Disputes

This paper forms part of the research background to a project of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The project is focused on accountability mechanisms for resolving complaints and disputes in the business and human rights arena. It aims to examine the strengths and weaknesses of existing complaints or dispute resolution mechanisms in order to highlight lessons to be drawn from their experience, consider how they might be improved and explore what model mechanisms might look like for the field of business and human rights.

This paper sets out in summary form a range of existing complaints-cum-dispute resolution mechanisms from a variety of different contexts, whether national or international, private or public, based on law or voluntary standards. It includes some mechanisms that involve governments but not business, as these may also contain elements of interest and use in addressing disputes arising in the corporate arena. The aim here is to describe the mechanisms as factually as possible. This provides a platform for further analysis as to how effective these mechanisms are and how well they are implemented, but such judgments are not the purpose of this paper.

The mechanisms could be categorised in a variety of different ways. Here they are ordered roughly along a spectrum from the judicial and quasi-judicial, through binding and non-binding arbitration, investigatory processes linked to specific sanctions, mediation and conciliation, and finally investigatory processes linked to political or public pressure. This should not be taken to imply that mechanisms at one or other end of the spectrum are most effective. Where a mechanism provides for two or more approaches, it is ordered according to its main focus or preferred approach 1 . As will be seen, there are considerable variations among mechanisms that fall nominally under the same category. There are also common elements between mechanisms at different points along the spectrum. It is worth touching here on some of the patterns that emerge.