Human rights due diligence involves the actions taken by a company to both identify and act upon actual and potential human rights risks for workers in its operations, supply chains and the services it uses. (Ethical Trading Initiative)

Lia Hayman, Thai Union – SEA Alliance Human Rights Due Diligence Working Group Lead.

Key areas of focus:

• Reviewing status and progress of various HRDD activities currently underway within SEA Alliance and with partners.
• Jointly engaging with key tools and initiatives to promote alignment and inform their development. Assessing any new tools and resources to support HRDD and engaging with external organisations to support effectiveness and foster collaboration.
• Creating and reviewing a common risk assessment for source fisheries for the UK market, and identifying where updates may be needed. This provides a starting point for where companies and their partners should be focusing their efforts.
• Reviewing the HRDD components of the SEA Alliance “Commitment to Progress.”
• Developing training on human rights and labour standards in seafood supply chains, covering topics such as Decent Work at Sea, Responsible Recruitment, Grievance Mechanisms, Information Gathering and Risk Assessment, and Purchasing Practices.
• Enabling member companies to respond in a timely way to identified risks in source fisheries by creating specific working groups on key areas of concern.

Work areas

• Risk assessment for source fisheries for the UK market. The SEA Alliance Fishery Risk Tool uses data from several indices and ratings systems to produce a high-level baseline assessment of human rights risks in selected fisheries.
• Developing training on human rights and labour standards in seafood supply chains. We have developed a six-part webinar series to provide practical guidance to help seafood business though the complexities of Human Rights Due Diligence. To find out more look at our Anchoring Due Diligence webinar page. The webinars are available to view and are open access.
• Joint engagement. PAS 1550 implementation guidance. The PAS 1550 is a voluntary code of practice developed collaboratively by seafood industry representatives and the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), The Pew Charitable Trusts, Oceana and WWF to help industry assess and mitigate the risks posed by IUU fishing in their supply chains. SEA Alliance members have worked with this group of NGOs to produce some guidance to help implement the code. This guidance is open access. Please visit the IUU Watch website for detailed information about the PAS 1550 Due Diligence guide.
• Respond in a timely way to identified risks in source fisheries. In response to concerns regarding labour issues in the UK fishing sector, the SEA Alliance has developed a timebound action plan focused on ensuring effective Human Rights Due Diligence in UK fish supply chains.