Netherlands

3. Results of the consultations and government response

3.5 Scope for Remedy

ACCESS Facility [page 32]

The ACCESS Facility was set up in December 2012 with a view to knowledge building and improving access to effective dispute

settlement between companies and communities either in or out of court. ACCESS supports and facilitates local dispute settlement

mechanisms, since it is convinced that local solutions are the most effective and sustainable, and that companies and other interested

parties will only use dialogue and mediation if they have confidence in both the design and function of the relevant mechanisms.

Since the government believes that the ACCESS Facility clearly provides added value, it has awarded start-up funding under the Human Rights Fund.

4. Action Points

Scope for remedy [page 42]

• The Netherlands has provided the ACCESS Facility with start-up funding.
• In 2014, the Netherlands will organise a conference on judicial and non-judicial grievance mechanisms, together with the ACCESS Facility.
• In very serious situations, where a recommendation by the NCP is needed to support the social dialogue, the government will acquire scope to ask the NCP to carry out a sector-wide investigation into CSR issues. The conditions under which the NCP may be requested to carry out these investigations will be specified in the amendments to the decree establishing the NCP, which will be submitted to the House of Representatives before the summer of 2014.

In their letter requesting advice on how effective CSR agreements can be concluded with business sectors, the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation and the Minister of Economic Affairs asked the SER to devote explicit attention to the role the NCP could play as facilitator or dispute settlement mechanism.