Ciara Hackett & Ciaran O’Kelly
Readers of this blog, might be interested in a post published by the above authors last week (Friday 12th November 2021) on NOVA BHRE’s Blog Symposium on National Contact Points. You can peruse the blog symposium here where there are some fantastic contributions focussing in on NCP experiences around the globe. You can read this blogpost in it’s original format here.
For anyone who wishes to read this work in more detail, you can find the most recent version of the research here. All comments are greatly received.
Business & Human Rights in Ireland 
Thanks for sharing. The blog makes the following statement: “We are finding that despite being heralded as a “good” NCP, the UK NCP has contributed to the process of transforming remedy for human rights impact away from reactionary restitution towards a process of improving future respects and future duties to mitigate future harms. Whereas this has a role to play in improving the business and human rights corporate landscape, this can only ever be secondary to remedying the rights of current victims in a manner that resolves (or alleviates) their issues”
While the statement is in reference to UK NCP, I would be interested to know to what degree has the Ireland’s NCP been successful in improving corporate landscape/practice regarding “future respects and future duties to mitigate future harms.”
Hi Patrick, thanks for the comment/question. Historically, the Irish NCP would not have had much traction in the area at all. If you look at the Irish complaints to date, the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign complaint was blocked (2011), and the Shell one was not resolved (2008) so we don’t have much solid data on which to draw useful conclusions (in comparison with the UK where there are now 85 relevant complaints following the JCB one this week). Partly I suppose this has to do with a limited number of cases being brought before the Irish NCP (2 completed) and of those that were, some were where the Irish NCP was a secondary NCP in the proceedings (with the Dutch NCP for example the main NCP re the Corrib oil dispute). Nevertheless, in recent times (and particularly since the NAP) it would seem as though the Irish NCP is on a path of reinvigoration. As to how successful this will be- and the impact on improving the corporate landscape even generally regardless of future respects and future duties to mitigate – we will have to wait and see. The various complaints currently lodged from GLAN (2018/2021 numerous)), Pharmakina (2020) and Chagos Refugee Group (2021 – numerous), will provide us with more insights – so looking forward to seeing how these develop. Ciara
Thanks Ciara for the detailed response. Do you know if there has been any uptake of your 2019 recommendations to the Irish NCP (in the The Irish Jurist, 2019)?
I am surprised that there is no webpage where the cases are listed with NCP statements – or maybe I haven’t searched hard enough
Best,
Patrick