Consulting firms must stop undermining democracy abroad

Due diligence needed to ensure they are respecting rights of all, Tim Wood writes.

The principle that businesses must respect international human rights standards, including when operating in countries that don’t themselves do so, has been embraced by (among others) the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and multinational corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell, GE and Goldcorp.

In Canada, the principle is often articulated to mining companies, whose activity abroad has at times infringed local employees’ and others’ rights to freedom of association and security of the person. Global Affairs Canada operates an Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor to try to minimize the harmful effects of Canadian companies’ overseas mining operations.

But recent reports suggest that a different sector in which Canadian companies are active — political consulting — poses its own threat to an internationally enshrined human right. The right to vote and stand in genuine elections is set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is a subset of the broader international human right to political participation, which is the legal core of democracy. While many states are backsliding on democracy, most still hold elections.

Even within electoral democracies, however, opposition candidates for high office face a growing threat from misinformation campaigns, many reportedly developed by transnational political consulting firms. Especially in the febrile pre-electoral climates of fledgling African democracies, recent news reports have attributed the following to Western political consultancies:

In Kenya in 2017, U.S. consultancy Harris Media allegedly produced a widely circulated misinformation video on behalf of incumbent President Uhurru Kenyatta, depicting intertribal violence should his challenger, Raila Odinga, be elected;

In Nigeria in 2015, U.K. consultancy Cambridge Analytica and its Canadian partner, AggregateIQ, allegedly produced and disseminated a misinformation video for incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, depicting the imposition of Sharia law and widespread violence should his challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, be elected. AggregateIQ says it complied with Nigerian law;

In South Africa in 2014, U.K. firm Bell Pottinger produced widely circulated race-baiting materials on behalf of incumbent President Jacob Zuma, depicting “economic apartheid” should his challenger, Helen Zille, a white woman, be elected.

Whether or not these misinformation campaigns were determinative of the electoral outcome, and whether or not they were permitted under the law of the country concerned, they undoubtedly infringed the internationally enshrined right of opponents to participate in fair elections. In this respect, Canadian whistleblower Christopher Wylie stated to British MPs last week that AggregateIQ “is a company that has gone around the world and undermined democratic institutions in all kinds of countries.” If the allegations are true, the same can be said of Harris Media, Cambridge Analytica, Bell Pottinger and no doubt other consultancies — and arguably also the social media companies that allow electoral misinformation campaigns to be propagated.

Political consulting firms, in Canada and elsewhere, should follow the lead of the extractive sector in adopting and abiding by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Given political consultants’ unique sphere of activity, this would entail a commitment to respect the right of all candidates to participate fairly in elections; to undertake ongoing due diligence to identify, prevent and account for their direct or indirect impact on the right to political participation; and to establish processes to remediate any adverse impact on that right in a given instance.

Corporate social responsibility is not confined to certain sectors or rights. As new areas of transnational activity emerge, companies must acknowledge their responsibility to respect the rights affected.

Canadian political consultancies, like Canadian extractive companies, should lead the way.

Tim Wood is a lawyer and has served on international election observation missions of the European Union, Organization of American States, and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.