Round table “Business human rights responsibilities: the experience of the countries of V4 and Baltic states for Ukraine” which was supported by International Visegrad Fund was held 4th of October. Web-site of this event is http://legalforum.nlu.edu.ua/2017/events/visegrad/. Total number of participants was 105 persons.
The round table was one of the key events of the Ist Kharkiv International Legal Forum “Law and Problems of Sustainable Development in Globalized World” (http://legalforum.nlu.edu.ua/), 3-6 October. The Forum included panel discussions, round tables, workshops and other events, focused on selected topics. Experienced politicians, government officials and academics from Ukraine and foreign states, officials of international organizations, EU institutions, well-known human rights activists and representatives of legal business participated in the Forum as key speakers. More then 1000 persons participated in the Forum. Information about the round table “Business human rights responsibilities: the experience of the countries of V4 and Baltic states for Ukraine” was distributed to all participants of the Forum.
Round table included 3 sessions:
Session І – BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: NEW TRENDS. Moderator of this session was Evguenia Klementieva, Danish Institute for Human Rights (Denmark). She also had a speech about implementation of U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, good and bed practices of such implementation. Other key lecturers of this session were: Ella Skybenko, Eastern Europe/Central Asia Researcher & Representative of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (central office based in London), told about advancing human rights in business; Tanel Kerikmae, Tallin Law School, Tallinn Technical University, Estonia, had speech about Enterprises responsible for Human rights; Rostyslav Kurinko, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Department of “Ukrsalznitsa”, Ukraine, proposed to discuss on Corporate social responsibility in the context of business obligations in the field of human rights; “Business and Human Rights issues in the ECHR case-law” was topic of lecture of Mariia Taras, well known Ukrainian expert, executive Director of the Rule of Law Center, Ukrainian Catholic University.
Session 2 – NATIONAL PRACTICES OF IMPLEMENTATION OF BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS. This session was moderated by Olena Uvarova, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University. Key lecturers of this session were: Michał Jabłoński, lecturer at Warsaw University, Vice Chairman of Law and Economics Laboratory foundation, Poland, with speech “Is there a connection between existence of the procedural and institutional guarantees of human rights enforcement and the safety of doing business? Lessons from Poland”; Ganna Shvachka, Head of NGO SME SPOLU, Slovak Republic, with speech “Corporate Social Responsibility: law regulation in Slovak Republic”; Peter Curos, Gustav Radbruch Institute of Law Theory at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovak Republic, with speech “A Paradigm of Human Dignity – Struggles within and outside the borders”; Kristi Joamets, Tallin Law School, Tallinn Technical University, Estonia, and Dovilė Gailiūtė, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania, with discussion “Business and human rights: are the Baltic countries ready to change of the paradigm?”.
National Pilot Report “Business and Human Rights in Ukraine” was presented on this session.
Session 3 – BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN PRACTICE. Moderator of this session was Dmytro Vynokurov, Factor Group companies. Key lecturers were Tomasz Lachowski, University of Łódź, Poland, who presented speech titled “Transitional justice as a mean of addressing long-lasting economic violence, with special reference to the anti-corruption policy in post-Maidan Ukraine”; Maryna Kapustina, SME SPOLU, Slovak republic, with presentation “Restrictions on employer’s right to freedom of religion: on the example of decisions of European courts”; Tomáš Flídr, Czech Institute of Information Security Managers, Czech republic, who presented speech “Evolution of protection of human rights in cyberspace in V4”, and Yulia Razmetaeva, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, with speech “The right to privacy in the light of the digital age challenges: business obligations”.
A total of 16 lecturers presented their speeches at the round table.