Third Generation Human Rights in the Palm Oil Industry

Sustainable development has become mainstream in development studies and requires that social and environmental issues (the so-called third generation of human rights) be central to the wider development process. International conventions and agreements on how the sustainable development is to be achieved influenced the principles of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). This is an international multi-stakeholder organisation set up to regulate the growing palm oil industry. The protection of third generation rights under formal RSPO documents is quite advanced, but there remains a wide gap between the principles of RSPO and realities on the ground. This study considers an example of one major RSPO stakeholder – the Wilmar Group of companies – in relation to indigenous and environmental rights in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. It considers the multistakeholder relations around one legal case, through the lens of an analysis of power relations among the parties involved in a legal case brought to RSPO. By taking a case from a RSPO member in West Kalimantan, and examining it in detail, the study is able to reflect on the limits of accountability in the present multi-stakeholder arrangements of RSPO, arrangements which tend to benefit business rather than indigenous people’s human and environmental rights. Power relations are thus reflected in the issues and proceedings of the legal case brought by a number of NGOs against the Wilmar Group through RSPO. So, whilst RSPO incorporates some important principles of third generation human rights, particularly in recognizing the collective rights of local communities and including environmental rights in its Principles and Criteria, what is lacking is an appropriate mechanism for enforcing these principles and ensuring that powerful stakeholders adhere to them. The principles and criteria of the RSPO need to be connected to effective mechanisms for their implementation. And RSPO membership needs to be extended to involve broader stakeholders, including local communities and trade unions. All this is needed in order to more effectively implement the principles and criteria of RSPO on the ground