When the Minister for Business wrote earlier in September to inform me that the Scottish Government had published new guidance on “human rights reputational risk management for investment decisions”, I was cautiously optimistic.
For the last two years I’ve worked to uncover how much funding the Scottish Government gives to arms dealers, including those implicated in alleged war crimes and the slaughter of children in Yemen. Any action putting an end to this atrocious misuse of public funds should be welcomed. Maybe they were finally listening.
Unfortunately, that is far from what’s happened here.
The name should be the first warning; human rights reputational risk management. This is not about assessing human rights, it’s about assessing the potential damage to the funder’s reputation by association with those whose human rights records are abysmal.
That being said, even if the aim is not so noble, new guidance could still have a positive effect.
This isn’t really new guidance or a Scottish Government production either though. It is mostly links to work by other bodies – the United Nations, the Institute for Human Rights and Business, the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Initiative and others.
Make no mistake, these are certainly useful resources, but by doing little more than signposting to external initiatives it is not clear what exactly the government is asking of its agencies providing these handouts. It’s impossible to avoid a feeling of this being no more than lip-service to dampen the bad press they’ve received weekly as a result of our work.
Along with its reliance on links to other bodies, the wording of the guidance itself indicates that it is not compulsory. In its few pages, it only sets out recommendations and describes its own content as advice.
The language itself is not definitive. It suggests what kind of assessments should be conducted, but also states that the detail of what is checked is ultimately a matter of judgement by whomever has initiated the relationship. Due regard for human rights seems to rely more on agencies deciding themselves to follow the external links provided than on any clear instructions from the Scottish Government.
I’ve asked the government to explain exactly what status this guidance has and provide copies of any human rights assessments recently carried out, to give us a clearer picture of what’s going on. Given the lack of transparency we’ve faced so far, going as far as an Information Commissioner ruling that they breached Freedom of Information law, I expect this will take months yet again.
In the meantime, more children will die at the hands of arms dealers funded by the Scottish Government with public money. And the government will bury its head further into the sand.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel