Mr. Ed O'Donovan:

In addition to the legislation development that Ms Curran mentioned, a handful of companies have prioritised the issues of human rights, civil society space and human rights defenders and have fully engaged. Adidas, for instance, developed a human rights defenders policy a number of years ago and it has gone out to bat on behalf of workers detained for trying to unionise. Adidas has also had meetings with Vietnamese government officials in those contexts. Marks & Spencer's has developed a policy on human rights defenders. There are examples for companies to model themselves on and replicate. These lead to substantive change given the leverage that they have. We should think about this aspect a little more when we negotiate with companies and urging them to take steps that point towards best practice, which is out there.