澳大利亚工商业与人权实践的检视、反思与启示

Operationalizing Business and Human Rights:Review,Refl ections,and Insights into Australian Practice

为了缓解工商业发展对人权产生的负面影响,澳大利亚政府积极响应工商业与人权倡议。目前,澳大利亚主要通过以反歧视和反现代奴役制为核心事项、以信息披露为核心义务的国内法律要求企业负责任经营,并通过意识提升、实践引导、正向激励、行业建设等政策策略促进企业履行人权责任。与此同时,澳大利亚还建立了由国家司法救济机制、国家非司法申诉机制和非国家申诉机制构成的多层次的受害人救济体系。即便如此,澳大利亚在工商业与人权领域的“治理差距”仍十分明显,主要体现在顶层设计长期缺位、规范要求碎片化分布、法律实施力度不足和救济机制实效不佳等方面。为了更好地应对《区域全面经济伙伴协定》时代对工商业与人权的挑战,澳大利亚有必要通过制定国家行动计划、优化法律政策体系、建立部际协同制度和完善公私救济机制等路径提升工商业与人权治理绩效。对澳大利亚政府在工商业与人权领域治理实践的检视与反思,不仅可以帮助在澳中企加强人权合规建设并为我国提升工商业与人权治理效能提供镜鉴,也有助于发展我国工商业与人权学界的区域国别研究范式。

To mitigate the adverse impacts of business activities on human rights,Australia has actively participated in business and human rights initiatives.Currently,Australia holds corporations accountable primarily through domestic laws that focus on anti-discrimination and anti-modern slavery measures,as well as obligations related to the disclosure of information.Policy strategies such as awareness-raising,operational guidance,incentive programmes and industry promotion are employed by the Australian government to promote corporate responsibility in respecting human rights.Concurrently,Australia has preliminarily established a multi-layered remedial ecosystem,comprising state-based judicial remedies,state-based non-judicial remedies,and non-state-based non-judicial remedies mechanisms.Nevertheless,Australia continues to encounter substantial“governance gaps”in the realm of business and human rights.These gaps are marked by the absence of a long-term and overarching strategic planning,fragmented regulatory landscape,insuffi cient legal enforcement,and ineffi ciencies in the redress mechanisms.In order to more eff ectively address these gaps and new challenges arising from the operation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership,it is imperative for Australia to establish a National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights,optimize the domestic regulatory ecosystem,form an interdepartmental task force collaborating on business and human rights governance,and enhance the functioning of state-and non-state-based remedial mechanisms.An examination and refl ection upon the regulatory practices of the Australian government in the fi eld of business and human rights can serve multiple purposes.It not only facilitates Chinese enterprises operating in Australia to enhance their compliance with human rights standards and offers insights for improving the effectiveness of business and human rights governance in our own country,but also contributes to the development of a regional and national studies paradigm within the academic domain of business and human rights in China.