7.5.0 Introductie

Against the background of corporate and human rights law standards as set out in the sections 7.2-7.4, it will be interesting to examine in which way the Ruggie Report describes corporate due diligence in relation to human rights abuses will be examined in this section. But firstly, a short exposé will be provided of Ruggie's point of view on business and human rights and complementary governance.

Research carried out at Ruggie's request showed that over the period 20052007 more than 320 corporate-related human rights violations were reported. Approximately 59 per cent of those violations were conducted by the companies themselves, the remainder concerned indirect corporate-related human rights abuses, through subcontractors, local governments or suppliers.1 Many of the abuses occurred in the extractive industry and timber logging, but abuses in the consumer products supply chain were also noted. Corporate-related human rights abuses often have environmental concerns too. Ruggie states that: "(...) environmental concerns were raised in relation to all sectors and translated into impacts on a number of rights, including the right to health, right to life, rights to adequate food and housing, minority rights to culture, and the right to benefit from scientific progress."2 He mentioned that access to clean water "was raised in 20 per cent of cases, where firms had allegedly impeded access to clean water or polluted a clean water supply." Ruggie considers these abuses a consequence of economic globalisation.