Quick Take

Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable—Remediating Human Rights Violations

February 11, 2026

A recent academic study finds that companies often respond to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) incidents by severing ties with affected suppliers. The findings provide empirical support for a troubling reality long observed by human rights practitioners: many companies are unwilling to invest the time and resources required to remediate adverse human rights impacts.

A recent and widely reported case illustrates this dynamic. Following allegations of forced labour, the Italian fashion house Prada reportedly terminated relationships with more than 200 suppliers. The speed and blanket nature of this decision suggest that little, if any, effort was made to pursue remediation, a response that most likely left affected workers without protection or recourse.

This pattern reveals a fundamental contradiction in corporate risk management: by severing ties with problematic suppliers, companies may eliminate their immediate reputational risk, but they also eliminate their leverage to address the systemic conditions that create human rights violations. Their departure often allows sub-standard conditions to continue or worsen. This “de-risking” approach transforms due diligence from a tool for positive change into a mechanism that perpetuates harm by pushing violations deeper underground. True remediation requires sustained engagement with root causes. While the challenges are significant, there are practical steps companies can take to build effective remediation capabilities.

In many cases, companies lack the practical expertise needed to engage in effective remediation. During training sessions with corporate procurement professionals in Switzerland last year, participants frequently noted that while risk identification processes have improved, there remains significant uncertainty about how to proceed once risks materialize, particularly during the remediation phase.

According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, disengagement from a business relationship should be a measure of last resort after efforts to prevent or mitigate harm have failed. Even then, companies are expected to apply principles of responsible disengagement. In practice, however, immediate withdrawal is often the more comfortable option for firms, unless civil society organizations or other watchdogs are closely monitoring the situation and holding companies publicly accountable.

One sector illustrates both the complexity of meaningful remediation and the consequences of inadequate responses to human rights challenges.

Sourcing cobalt responsibly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been a longstanding challenge. Mining accidents are common, particularly in the informal artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector, where extraction often takes place in hand-dug shafts and tunnels that can collapse and bury miners alive. ASM is an integral part of the global cobalt supply chain and a vital livelihood for millions of Congolese.

Our research indicates that artisanal mining can be made safer. However, formalizing ASM sites will not yield perfect working conditions overnight. Transitioning extraction methods from tunnels to open pits, and establishing responsible mining standards, requires sustained training for cooperatives and a long-term commitment from local actors, traders, and downstream buyers.

Responsible ASM must be actively supported through incentives that make formalization economically viable. Regulators, investors, and NGOs must trust and support this process with expertise, and they should reward companies that engage rather than turn a blind eye to a business reality in the DRC that cannot simply be wished away.

This example raises an obvious question: how can companies build the capability to engage effectively rather than simply walking away?

First, companies must develop a clear understanding of the problem in close collaboration with local actors. Local stakeholders are best positioned to explain the realities on the ground, and without a nuanced understanding of the drivers of human rights risks, effective solutions are unlikely to emerge. In many cases, such risks are shaped by multiple, interconnected factors, requiring a comprehensive and context-sensitive assessment.

Second, companies need to commit to long-term engagement in their sourcing contexts. Remediation depends on building trust with key stakeholders and forming durable coalitions—processes that inevitably take time.

Third, companies must be able to communicate to senior leadership both the benefits of remediation and the costs of disengagement. Resilient supply chains are built on relationships rather than purely transactional exchanges, and few strategies strengthen those relationships more than sharing responsibility for addressing complex challenges.

To be clear, we are not advocating for an endless “sustainability journey” that allows companies to delay action indefinitely. Measures to improve practices must be time-bound and closely monitored, clearly highlighting the gap between conditions on the ground and the human-rights standards that the industry has committed to uphold. And all actors must contribute to the creation of an environment that offers incentives for remediation.

Regulators can help by ensuring that legal requirements are interpreted in a way that supports meaningful change rather than narrow compliance. Companies can help by resisting the instinct to “cut and run” once issues surface and invest in real long-term solutions that address root causes. Civil society can help by holding companies to account for real outcomes, not just procedural steps that create the illusion of progress.

Global Labor