None of their Business? How the United Nations is Calling on Global Companies to Lead the Way on Human Rights of LGBTI people Dan BROSS*, Fabrice HOUDART** and Salil TRIPATHI*** Keywords: Guiding Principles, LGBT rights, Business and LGBT rights, Discrimination As the state-driven campaign in Indonesia against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people has gained intensity in the past few months 1 , several US-based multinationals have found themselves caught in the crossfire. First, religious leaders in Indonesia called for a consumer boycott of the coffee chain Starbucks in protest at the company’s public support for LGBTI causes. As the issue gained visibility, Starbucks’ local franchise responded with a statement 2 in Bahasa, Indonesia that was criticized by several activists as an apparent attempt to distance the brand from the local LGBTI community. A few months later, Google pulled several gay dating and other LGBTI- related applications from the Indonesian version of its online store in response to government demands. 3 The Indonesia case is not unique. It is one of the many situations multinational companies face in their attempt to reconcile their global policies and values with the local reality. These global policies are drawn from international law and human rights standards, as well as their own values and codes of conduct. Company codes and practices are also drawn from the laws and practices in the countries where the companies originate. When these companies operate in a new environment where those norms clash with local practices and customs, conflict is inevitable. These tensions between global and local norms raises important questions about uniformity of standards, companies’ willingness to adhere to international standards, and their own understanding of corporate accountability. Companies may face pressure from employees and shareholders too. They also have the challenge of remaining true to * Senior Advisor, Article One Advisors; formerly Senior Director, Business and Corporate Responsibility, Microsoft. ** Human Rights Officer, United Nations. ** Senior Advisor, Global Issues, Institute for Human Rights and Business. 1 ‘Criminalizing Indonesia’s LGBT People Won’t Protect Them’, Kyle Knight (Researcher, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program), Asia Times, 14 February 2018. 2 ‘Starbucks Indonesia Clarifies Stance on LGBT Rights Following Recent Boycott’, Agnes Anya (http://www. thejakartapost.com/news/2017/07/05/starbucks-indonesia-clarifies-stance-on-lgbt-rights-following-recent-boycott.html), The Jakarta Post, 5 July 2017. 3 ‘New Indonesia web system blocks more than 70,000 “negative’ sites” by Ed Davies and Cindy Silviana (https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-communications/new-indonesia-web-system-blocks-more-than-70000-negative- sites-idUSKCN1G30KA), Reuters, 19 February 2018. Business and Human Rights Journal, 3 (2018), pp. 271–276 © Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/bhj.2018.12 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/bhj.2018.12 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 63.141.32.102, on 19 Apr 2020 at 04:16:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at