• Navigate
    • About
    • Understanding Impacts
      • Understanding the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation
      • Impacts on People
      • UN Guiding Principles and Corporate Water Stewardship
    • Respect in Practice
      • Develop a Policy Commitment
      • Assess Impacts on the HRWS
      • Integrate and Take Action
      • Track and Communicate Performance
      • Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms
    • Supporting Human Rights
    • Resources
      • Diagnostic Questions
      • Glossary
      • Human Rights and Corporate Water Stewardship
      • Specific Sections of the Guidance
      • Standards and Instruments Related to the HRWS
  • Download Full Report (PDF)
UN Global Compact | Pacific Institute
Mailing List
Publications
  • Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines (2014)
  • Exploring the Business Case for Sanitation
  • Shared Water Challenges and Interests
  • Understanding "Sufficiency" in Water-Related Collective Action
  • Corporate Water Accounting
  • Guide to Managing Integrity in Water Stewardship Initiatives (2015)
  • Respecting the Human Rights to Water & Sanitation (2015)
  • Guide to Setting Site Water Targets Informed by Catchment Context
  • Guide to Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy (2010)
  • Understanding Key Water Stewardship Terms
  • Guide to Water-Related Collective Action (2013)
  • Water Resilience Coalition
Tools & Websites
  • Water Action Hub
  • WASH4Work
  • Natural Resources Risk & Action Framework
  • Water Resilience Assessment Framework
  • Benefit Accounting of Nature-Based Solutions for Watersheds
Respecting the Human Rights to Water & Sanitation (2015)Respecting the Human Rights to Water & Sanitation (2015)
  • Navigate
    • About
    • Understanding Impacts
      • Understanding the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation
      • Impacts on People
      • UN Guiding Principles and Corporate Water Stewardship
    • Respect in Practice
      • Develop a Policy Commitment
      • Assess Impacts on the HRWS
      • Integrate and Take Action
      • Track and Communicate Performance
      • Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms
    • Supporting Human Rights
    • Resources
      • Diagnostic Questions
      • Glossary
      • Human Rights and Corporate Water Stewardship
      • Specific Sections of the Guidance
      • Standards and Instruments Related to the HRWS
  • Download Full Report (PDF)

Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms

  • Home
  • Respect in Practice
  • Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms

Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms

Core Concepts

  • Despite a company’s best efforts, negative impacts on the HRWS may still occur. Where a company identifies that it has caused or contributed to such impacts, it should provide for or cooperate in their remediation through legitimate processes, including state- based judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms.
  • Companies should establish or participate in effective opera- tional-level grievance mechanisms. These can help ensure that grievances can be addressed early and remediated directly. Such mechanisms should not undermine legitimate judicial or trade union processes.

 

Key Term: Remediation and Remedy

Key Steps

A. Establish Appropriate Processes to Provide Remedy

1. Understand the Responsibility to Remediate Negative Impacts

Where a company causes or contributes to an HRWS impact, it should provide for or cooperate in legitimate processes to remedy that harm.

2. Map Existing External Grievance Mechanisms and Assess their Effectiveness

A company should map the existing external grievance mechanisms that exist and assess their effectiveness in order to understand the implications for its own processes for providing remedy to affected stakeholders.

Key Term: Grievance Mechanism

B. Design Effective Operational-Level Grievance Mechanisms

1. Understand what makes a Grievance Mechanism Effective

To be effective in practice, a grievance mechanism needs to be trusted by those for whose use it is intended. This means that a company should design any operational-level grievance mechanisms with key “effectiveness criteria” in mind.

2. Review and Build on Existing Internal Grievance Mechanisms

A company should review existing internal mechanisms that may be able to address human rights–related grievances to determine whether they are appropriate for handling complaints about HRWS impacts, and address any gaps that may exist.

3. Define the Scope of the Mechanism

A company should clearly define what complaints the mechanism will receive, from which stakeholders, and who will be involved in addressing them.

Relevant Key Terms

Remediation and Remedy
Remediation is the process of providing a remedy for a harm. Remedy can take a variety of different forms, including apologies, restitution, rehabilitation, financial and non-financial compensation, and punitive sanctions (whether criminal or administrative), as well as the prevention of harm through injunctions or guarantees of non-repetition. Whereas some forms of remedy are more likely in a judicial mechanism, many are possible through non-judicial processes as well. A legitimate process is one that provides a fair and independent process, is accountable, and produces outcomes that are consistent with human rights.

Grievance Mechanism
A grievance mechanism is a formal channel for individuals or groups to raise concerns about and seek remedy for impacts a company has had on them, including on their human rights. It may be state-based (such as judicial processes or labor tribunals) or not state-based (such as the mechanisms established by some international financial organizations or by the UN or regional organizations).

Continue on with the Guide

Published

January

2015

In partnership with

Table of Contents

  • About
  • Overview
  • Understanding Impacts
    • Understanding the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation
    • Impacts on People
    • UN Guiding Principles and Corporate Water Stewardship
  • Respect in Practice
    • Develop a Policy Commitment
    • Assess Impacts on the HRWS
    • Integrate and Take Action
    • Track and Communicate Performance
    • Remediation and Grievance Mechanisms
  • Supporting Human Rights
  • Resources
    • Diagnostic Questions
    • Glossary
    • Human Rights and Corporate Water Stewardship
    • Specific Sections of the Guidance
    • Standards and Instruments Related to the HRWS
  • Download Full Report (PDF)
Newsletter

CEO Water Mandate

UN Global Compact | Pacific Institute

ceowatermandate@unglobalcompact.org

About the Mandate

  • Mission & Governance
  • Endorsing Companies
  • Strategic Partners
  • Focus Areas & Working Groups
  • FAQs
  • News

Mandate Resources

  • Water Stewardship Academy
  • Water Stewardship Toolbox
  • Water Action Hub
  • Newsletter
Tweets by H2O_stewards

United Nations | Privacy Policy | Cookies Policy | Copyright

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
  • Navigate
    • About
    • Understanding Impacts
    • Respect in Practice
    • Supporting Human Rights
    • Resources
  • Download Full Report (PDF)