The Business Tool to Fight COVID-19 that Few are Talking About: Human Rights

The spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the respiratory illness from the latest known variant of Coronavirus, has in just a few short months been relentless and its impacts exponential. The virus, which is believed to have initially infected people near live animal markets in Wuhan city in Hubei province in China, has today reached around the globe. Health systems are under severe strain, resulting in alarming numbers of deaths and serious illness. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 a pandemic and health experts are not yet able to predict when the spread will slow, nor when a vaccine will be available. Scientists are hard at work trying to understand COVID-19 and how it can be fought. 

Pictured: Special hospital for coronavirus patients in Odisha, India (Wikimedia/Government of Odisha)

Many governments have passed firm rules to stop all activity in order to slow the outbreak’s pace, so that local health infrastructure can cope with the crisis. Until an effective vaccine is developed, tested, and rolled out, the only way forward is through ‘social distancing’. Global healthcare systems would collapse otherwise. Experience suggests that of the cases identified, as many as 80% of the infections may be mild, 15% would need hospitalisation, and 5% would need critical care. COVID-19 is believed by some experts to be substantially more lethal than seasonal flu, which has a fatality rate of 0.1% - which means that if the virus spreads widely, the global death toll may run into millions.

The economic impact has been devastating. One after another, three of the world’s largest economies, China, Europe, and the United States, have been affected severely. The de facto shutdown of businesses large and small in many countries has crippled the global economy, affecting primary producers in Latin America and Africa, and manufacturing supply chains in Asia. The disease may spread further to poorer countries with weak public health infrastructure, which would accentuate and prolong the crisis.

Most economists believe the global economy will shrink significantly this year and continue to do so for some time to come. Equity markets have tumbled, trade has collapsed, planes are grounded, and in many countries, factories have closed. Tourism has declined across the world, with prominent sites and bustling cities presenting an eerie, deserted look. Major events including the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for Summer 2020, have been postponed by at least a year. Other major business conferences, information technology conventions, the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, music festivals, and tournaments have been put off or called off as a result of the virus. The planet is on pause.

Millions of workers face uncertain futures, as companies where they work may not survive. With contradictory instructions from governments and agencies, companies are acting on their own, taking steps to protect their workers, and sometimes their supply chains, with no certainty about when the crisis will end.

Pictured: Migrant workers flee Maesot, Thailand after lockdown announcement (Flickr/Prachatai)

Macroeconomic tools to combat the crisis are limited. Fiscal policy alone cannot increase production when cash-strapped firms are closing down and supply chains are disrupted so severely. While increasing spending on health, purchasing medical equipment, and hiring more people in the health sector can have positive impacts on the economy, it takes time for factories to redesign production processes or train new workers from those laid off in other sectors to manufacture what the market needs.

With demand shrinking, large sectors of the economy have suffered huge losses from which they will take years to recover, if at all. Monetary stimulus, such as quantitative easing, can help, but for that markets must have trust in policymakers, which is hard during panic. More than stimulus, companies – particularly small firms – need liquidity to stay afloat. Markets no longer trade on sentiment, but on algorithms, and many trades are automated, making human intervention inconsequential. Yet the effect can be catastrophically consequential, as pension values diminish. Ideas like Universal Basic Income, once considered radical, are increasingly seen as practical and being implemented as part of initial responses. Some governments have suspended mortgage payments as a form of relief for those who have lost jobs. While such steps offers immediate relief, the disruption in the velocity of money can have effects which may prolong the inevitable global recession.

Pictured: Customer temperature checks in Wuhan, China (Wikimedia/Painjet)

Given the scale and severity of the unfolding crisis, companies of all sizes and operating in all contexts are now faced with a range of unprecedented challenges that will require clarity of thinking, sharp focus on goals, the need to think outside the box, commitment to adhere to international standards and norms, and a concerted effort of collective action. Survival of companies is important, but that is a sub-set of the survival of our common humanity.

Companies have the responsibility to respect the human rights of all workers directly employed by them, and they should use their leverage to safeguard the rights of those who work for their suppliers, partners, and associates. Beyond that, companies have responsibilities to communities directly affected by them, and users and consumers of their goods and services. They should also look ahead to issues such as how the products they make and services they offer can adapt to meet critical urgent and future needs, support relief efforts, contribute to research, and explore other positive ways to augment public dialogue on long term planning to prevent the recurrence of such a crisis so that we are collectively more resilient in future. 

In a new deep-dive report, global think tank The Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) analyses how businesses should respond – together and with other stakeholders. Part I provides an over of the human rights impacts of the pandemic. Part II outlines the importance of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in the current context. Part III identifies where change is needed and where good practices are being implemented. It concludes with a series of recommendations to businesses. Part IV looks ahead, to the extent that is possible, and reflects on the longer-term implications. Three appendices show instructive examples from the past – how Sime Darby handled the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, how ExxonMobil dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in the USA, and how companies like BP and Daewoo responded to armed conflict in Libya. The intention in providing these additional examples is to broaden understanding of what companies have done in similar unanticipated contexts. 

***

This article previews the new report from the Institute for Human Rights and Business, "Respecting Human Rights in the Time of COVID-19 - Examining Companies' Responsibilities for Worker and Affected Communities".