Development Aid Procurement and the UNGPs on Business and Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities to Move towards 'the New Frontier of Buying Justice"

New topical publication by the Unit Co-Lead Professor Annamaria La Chimia titled 'Development Aid Procurement and the UNGPs on Business and Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities to Move towards ‘the New Frontier of Buying Justice’', in Sope Williams-Elegbe and Geo Quinot, Procurement Regulation in Africa (Juta, November 2018).

This chapter engages with the Procurement and Business and Human Rights debate focusing on one specific sector of procurement that has been, thus far, neglected by both human rights and procurement experts, namely development aid procurement, ie the process linked to the spending of aid money to purchase goods, works and services financed by aid. Aid agencies often operate in environments at high risk of human rights violations; for example, in conflict and post-conflict countries, in countries with authoritarian and/or corrupt regimes where the rule of law is not always upheld -and in sensitive sectors, such as infrastructure and other construction work, where human rights are too often abused.

Since procurement plays a central role in aid delivery, with the amount of aid being spent through procurement increasing significantly every year, it is imperative that the aid procurement process provides for effective mechanisms capable of preventing the award of contracts to companies that violate human rights and for mechanisms that allow effective remedies. This chapter fills an important gap within the current procurement and human rights debate and contributes to expanding the impact and relevance of the UNGPs.