Regional Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders THE ASIA PACIFIC CONTEXT Unlike its counterparts in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, the Asia Pacific is the only region without a region-wide human rights framework or enforcement architecture. This is partly due to the profound cultural, ethnolinguistic and geopolitical diversity of the region. Some headway has been made to develop human rights mechanisms under regional intergovernmental mechanisms, such as the Arab League and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), although these mechanisms only cover a small part of the Asia Pacific region and lack the capacity to hear individual complaints and issue binding decisions against member states. The institutional environment in the Asia Pacific presents a host of challenges for HRDs. It also limits the engagement potential of the APF to act on behalf of all its members collectively at a truly regional level. The absence of a clear regional audience for advocacy, policy-making and individual human rights dispute resolution impels the APF towards global and national responses to violations against HRDs. However, through this Action Plan, the APF will support innovative measures to strengthen protection and promotion of the rights of HRDs across the region, despite the challenges faced at a regional level. Business and Human Rights Private sector actors – most notably, multinational companies conducting business across borders – are frequent participants in violations against HRDs in the Asia Pacific. Violations by the private sector are undertaken in various forms; through outsourced private security firms and militias to intimidate defenders advocating against destructive local development, exploitation of migrant workers in highrisk industries such as garment manufacturing or fisheries, or judicial harassment of HRDs through heavily-funded legal action to prevent defenders from speaking out against violations. Private sector involvement in human rights violations is particularly common among EHRDs and grassroots indigenous defenders, who have taken on leading advocacy roles against large international corporations on behalf of communities affected by mining, logging, and other resource extraction projects. In its March 2020 Annual Briefing, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre reported a 48% increase in judicial harassment of HRDs investigating the conduct of business activities globally, with Southeast Asia a global hotspot for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) – the manipulation of national legal systems to illegitimately target otherwise valid claims or protest movements. The OHCHR Commentary on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights confirms this risk: ‘[States] should also ensure that the provision of justice is not prevented by corruption of the judicial process, that courts are independent of economic or political pressures from other State agents and from business actors, and that the legitimate and peaceful activities of human rights defenders are not obstructed.’ In Thailand, HRDs frequently face threats and intimidation from the private sector for speaking out against environmentally and socially destructive development projects. In April 2020, a group of local villagers from the Bamnejnarong community in central Thailand engaged in a peaceful protest against a large, foreign-owned potash mining company, which was planning to commence operations in the area. The protests were coordinated by local Trans activist and anti-mining campaigner, Sunthorn Duangnarong, who was arrested by police and held in detention without access to a lawyer. Migrant workers across the Asia Pacific region face increasing threats of abuse from private sector employers that facilitate their migration, or those that employ vulnerable undocumented migrants or refugees in exploitative conditions. The situation of mobile migrant workers and the multinational corporations often involved in their exploitation demands cross border collaboration among NHRIs in the region to effectively monitor and report on violations. 12