Presentation

Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister
20 Essex St
26 October 2015
BEYOND GOOD BUSINESS: Advocating for women’s rights in the
context of natural resource extraction and the UN Guiding Principles
on Business and Human Rights
Making a case for women’s rights in
the context of natural resource
extraction: Emerging challenges for
litigation

Making a case for women's rights in the context of natural resource
extraction: Emerging challenges for litigation
HOST STATE
Local communities
HOME STATE
Corporation
Extraterritorial acts

Making a case for women's rights in the context of natural resource
extraction: Emerging challenges for litigation
“Recognizing that even though States have the primary
responsibility to promote, secure the fulfilment of respect,
ensure respect of and protect human rights, transnational
corporations and other business enterprises, as organs of
society are also responsible for promoting and securing the
human rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human
rights” Preamble, Norms on the responsibilities of transnational
corporations and other business enterprises with regard to
human rights E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 [adopted on 13
August 2003]

Making a case for women's rights in the context of natural
resource extraction: Emerging challenges for litigation
“Realizing that transnational corporation and other business
enterprises, their officers and persons working for them are
also obligated to respect generally recognized responsibilities
and norms contained in United Nations treaties and other
international instruments such as […] the Convention on the
Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women […],
the American Convention on Human Rights […]” Preamble,
Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations
and other business enterprises with regard to human rights
[2003]

A. General Obligations
1. States have the primary responsibility to promote, secure the
fulfilment of, respect, ensure respect of and protect human
rights recognized in international as well as national law,
including ensuring that transnational corporation and other
business enterprises respect human rights. Within their rspective
sphere of activity and influence, transnational corporations and
other business enterprises have the obligation to promote,
secure the fulfilment of, respect, ensure respect of and protect
human rights recognized in international as well as national law
including the rights and interests of indigenous peoples and
other vulnerable groups.

11. [….] Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall refrain
from any activity which supports, solicits, or encourages States or any other
entities to abuse human rights.
12. Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall respect
economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights and
contribute to their realization, in particular the rights to development, adequate
food and drinking water, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health, adequate housing, privacy, education, freedom from thought, conscience
[….] and shall refrain from actions which obstruct or impede the realization of
those rights.
14. Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall carry out their activities
in accordance with national laws, regulations, administrative practices and policies relating
to the preservation of the environment of the countries in which they operate , as well as in
accordance with relevant international agreements,
Principles, objectives, responsibilities and standards with regard to the
environment as well as human rights, public health and safety […]

18. Transnational corporations and other business
enterprises shall provide prompt, effective and
adequate reparation to those persons, entities and
communities that have been adversely affected by
failures to comply with these Norms through, inter alia,
reparations, restitution, compensation and
rehabilitation for any damage done on property taken.
[…]

Making a case for women's rights in the context of
natural resource extraction: Emerging challenges for
litigation
“Transnational enterprises and foreign private investment shall
be subject to the legislation of the host countries and to the
jurisdiction of their competent courts and to the international
treaties and agreements to which said countries are parties, and
should conform to the development policies of the recipient
countries.”
Article 36, Charter of the Organization of American States

In sub-paragraph 4 (d) of his 2008 mandate, the Special
Representative of the Secretary on Business and Human Rights,
Professor John Ruggie, is asked to “integrate a gender
perspective throughout his work and give special attention to
vulnerable populations, in particular children”

• Differentiated impact because of gender
• Same violation may affect women worse
• Engendering reparations

• “The feminization of poverty describes a phenomenon
in which women represent a disproportionate
percentage of the world's poor.”
• “According to the Platform for Action adopted at the
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in
September 1995, ‘More than one billion people in the
world today, the great majority of whom are women, live
in unacceptable conditions of poverty, mostly in the
developing countries’”

litigation
“Human poverty is defined as “more than income poverty –
it is the denial of choices and opportunities for living a
tolerable life” (UNDP 1997, p. 2).
The “dimensions of poverty” include a short life, illiteracy,
exclusion, and lack of material means. These concepts are
consistent with the WID/GAD framework, which seeks to
elucidate the social, economic, and political positions of
women by examining women’s fertility, literacy, health,
educational attainment, access to employment, earnings,
political participation, and legal status.”
[http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/cpadocs/Feminization_of_Po
verty.pdf]

litigation
• 75% of illiterate people in Peru are women
[Source: Ombudsman , 75% of illiterate people in Peru are women, a
figure that underscores the eternal postponement of women's right to
education]
(It is considered an illiterate a person, someone who having more than 15
years, can not read or write. INEI According to statistics , more illiterate
departments are Huancavelica ( 18.6%) , Huánuco ( 18.5 % ) , Apurimac (
16.4 % ) , Ayacucho ( 14.9%) and Cajamarca ( 14.9 % ))
• In Bolivia , Peru , Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay precisely those
countries with the highest proportion of working rural women- more
than 50% of them worked in agriculture. [Source:
http://www.casadelamujerartesana.com/bolmmr/bol4/4bl4.html]

litigation
• “Although Peru has an ethnically diverse population,
discrimination by ethnic lines is common, particularly
against amerindians and blacks; gender often interacts
with ethnic origin; this may mean that "an indigenous
woman may only ever work as a maid”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Peru]

litigation
[Absence of a gender perspective] in the development of international law
has produced “a narrow and inadequate jurisprudence that has, among
other things, legitimated the unequal position of women around the world
rather than challenged it”. “
A need of “recasting the role of international so that it can transform ideas
about justice and order in the international community.”
“We want to investigate the ways in which international law has brushed
aside the injustices of women’s situations around the world and we want to
redraw the boundaries of international law so that it responds to these
injustices.”

Monica Feria-Tinta
Monica Feria-Tinta is a barrister, an expert in public international law, having broad experience both
as counsel and as adviser in international litigation before international courts and tribunals as well
as an adviser in non-contentious matters. Her international practice has covered most areas across
the field of public international law.
She has litigated landmark cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She has also appeared before the United Nations Human
Rights Committee, having previously worked for the International Court of Justice and the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She obtained the first international
binding decision on gender justice in the history of adjudication of the Inter-American region,
initiating the feminisation of human rights law in the Americas, prompting the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights to hold a State accountable for violations of the Inter-American Convention on the
Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women ( "Convention of Belém do
Pará") for the first time in eleven years, since its entry into force.
In 2006 she received the Inge Genefke International Award and in 2007, the Gruber Justice Prize,
which honours individuals who have advanced the cause of justice as delivered through the legal
system (shared with Justice Carmen Argibay from the Supreme Court of Argentina and Judge Carlos
Cerda from the Superior Court of Chile).
Areas of Practice
 Arbitration Public international Law
 Energy and Natural Resources Constitutional public and human rights
 Private International Law law

Monica Feria-Tinta
20 Essex St
London
WC2R 3AL
E: mferiatinta@20essexst.com
T: +44 20 7842 1200
www.20essexst.com
follow @20essexst
follow @MFeriaTinta
CONTACT

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