Promoting competition, protecting human rights

Paris, 1/12/16 - The first session of the 2016 OECD Global Forum on Competition focused on "Promoting competition, protecting human rights" during its first session. Competition law enforcement depends on an effective system of human rights, most obviously the right to property, the right to contract and rights to due legal process. Policies promoting competition between providers can also be effective in supporting human rights more broadly, for example through providing checks on the power of corporations, as well through helping fight corruption in government. However, economic competition itself is occasionally portrayed as harming human rights along with social values, for example through “social dumping, or environmental damage.

In addition, some policies intended to safeguard human rights depend on agreements between suppliers - agreements that might be in conflict with competition law or at least raise the risk or suspicion of being in conflict. This session brought together experts from the competition and human rights policy communities into discuss different perspectives and explored the ways in which any apparent conflicts between their objectives can be resolved.

Download the 2016 Forum Agenda English • Français

Global Forum website

Full list of Competition Policy Roundtables

GLOBAL FORUM SESSION DOCUMENTATION

Panelists, papers and presentations

Jean-Pierre CHAUFFOUR Bio
Lead Economist for the Maghreb countries, World Bank Group
presenting The Power of Freedom: Uniting Human Rights and Development Cato Institute

John EVANS
General Secretariat, TUAC

Gönenç GÜRKAYNAK Bio
Managing Partner, ELIG, Attorneys-at-Law, Turkey
presenting A Comparative Analysis on the Perception Differences between Competition Law and Anti-Corruption Law

Roel NIEUWENKAMP Bio
Chair of the OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

Toh HAN LI Bio
Chief Executive, Competition Commission of Singapore
presenting Competition law, freedom of association and fixing salaries • Version française de la note

Anna WU HUNG-YUK Bio
Chair, Competition Commission, Hong Kong, China

Other contributions: BIAC