The main goal of our idea is to create more transparency on the Multinationals' compliance of Human Rights in their production through the establishment of an international Platform. The participation on the Platform should thus form an incentive for enterprises to respect Human Rights on a voluntary basis.
The International Platform we conceive is based on a website (accessible to everyone) and directed by international and independent experts. If an enterprise decides to participate, it communicates to the committee of experts which Human Rights standards it applies to its production (based on a precise list of criteria). By participating it automatically authorises the committee of experts to verify the correct implementation of its stated compliance with the Human Rights criteria.
All the participating multinationals and the criteria can be summarised in a table in order to give a general overview on the enterprises efforts in a way to be easy understandable. To further enhance the transparency, the users can obtain detailed information on the enterprise's production by clicking on a respective link (i.e. to a Report by the experts or general description of the company's respective effort).
The whole platform shall serve as an impartial information tool for consumers on which they can rely on while taking their consumption decisions. Furthermore it can be used as a universal, trustworthy database on which different rankings and research could be based. A possible ranking would show which multinational enterprises respect the most Human Rights criteria or an index could capture the development of the efforts made by the companies.
The wider the Platform becomes spread and the more it will be used, the more the companies' incentives to participate will increase.
It is therefore to be understood as a part of a wide effort to create more transparency on the multinationals' Human Rights compliance and to sensibilise the civil society.