Business and Human Rights
Multinational companies enjoy unprecedented power and influence around the world. Many companies benefit from globalization while all too often evading accountability such as when their operations result in environmental damage or human rights abuses.
Canadian oil, gas and mining companies have operations in over 100 countries around the world and Canada has been called upon by international human rights bodies to regulate Canadian companies' overseas operations as well as sanction those which abuse human rights. And increasingly, Canadian companies that contribute to the climate crisis - and those who continue to invest in such operations - are coming under human rights scrutiny.
Amnesty’s Business and Human Rights work is concerned with:
- Prevention: Companies should be required by law to take steps to identify, prevent and address human rights abuses (known as human rights due diligence);
- Accountability: Companies must be held to account for abuses they commit;
- Remedy: People whose rights have been abused by companies must have access to justice and effective remedy;
- Protection of rights beyond borders: Companies operate across borders, so the law must also operate across borders to protect people’s rights.
Our Campaigns:
- Open for Justice: Canada
- Cobalt mining in the DRC: Stop Child Labour in Supply Chains
- Mount Polley Mine Disaster: Communities demand justice for Quesnel Lake
- Climate Justice: building a just transition one step at a time
- Palm Oil: labour abuses and the great palm oil scandal
- Earth Defenders Under Attack in the Americas: the role of Canadian extractives beyond borders
- Access to Justice: remedy for corporate abuses of human rights
- Powering Change: the campaign for an ethically-sourced rechargeable battery
- Corporate human rights abuses in Myanmar: Corporate Crime and Abuses at Copper Mine
- Digital Tourism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: profiting from human rights abuses
- Oil in the Niger Delta: Clean it up
Help us ensure that Canadian and multinational companies respect human rights in Canada and around the world.
Download our Corporate Action Kit Subscribe to receive our e-newsletter |
Get InvolvedDo you have a passion for corporate accountability and human rights? There are many ways you can get involved and bring your talents to the work. Join Amnesty Canada's Corporate Action Network today. Contact Amnesty's Corporate Action Network (for more information and/or to volunteer). Follow us on social media: |