Human rights impact assessments: Documementing how private sector investments impact international health

The private sector has significant impact on public health worldwide, but communities and public health professionals have not always had a tool to measure, monitor and advocate around this impact. An innovative Community Based Human Rights Assessment (COBHRA) tool, called Getting it Right, allows organizations and affected communities to systematically analyze and document the effects of private investments on their human rights and health. The tool was developed by Rights and Democracy; Oxfam America provided input and is promoting the tool, along with other human rights advocates.

This presentation will begin with an overview of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and their applicability to global public health advocacy. It will then explore the COBHRA tool, going through all phases of conducting a rights assessment, from how to form a research team, to data collection and analysis, to monitoring and company engagement.

The presentation will then highlight two COBHRA case studies and how they exposed serious community health concerns. The first assessed the rights of migrant and undocumented tobacco pickers in North Carolina, who faced pesticide poisoning, heatstroke and repetitive stress injuries. The second measured the impact of foreign investment in Bolivia’s hydrocarbon sector, and the environmental health impacts on Guarani indigenous communities. The presentation will end with an outline of how this tool can be used by public health advocates increase the ability of communities to articulate their rights and engage with companies, investors and government from a place of knowledge and power.