Article 18: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including to change and to manifest it
Necessary
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Freedom of religion is mostly enforced through courts and civil-rights law: Walmart, for instance, paid to settle an EEOC case after disciplining an employee for observing his Sabbath. But a sharper corporate link runs through the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region. Thermo Fisher supplied DNA-identification technology later used in Xinjiang's mass surveillance of that religious and ethnic minority, halting sales there only after years of advocacy and congressional pressure. Separately, a 57-investor coalition managing $4.4 trillion asked 47 apparel, tech and consumer-goods companies to map and exit Xinjiang-linked supply chains. Those companies included Nike, Adidas, H&M and Apple. Some instead quietly dropped their own anti-forced-labor language under pressure from the Chinese government. And when Congress moved to restrict imports tied to Uyghur forced labor, Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola and industry groups lobbied to soften the bill, which passed intact regardless in December 2021.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Corporate conduct is a necessary lever in two places. Employers must accommodate religious practice at work, a matter also governed by law. Companies selling surveillance technology or sourcing from regions where a religious minority is being persecuted (Xinjiang) can materially enable or limit that persecution's reach, though governments remain the primary actor.
Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola and other major companies, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are documented to have lobbied Congress to weaken the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act before its 2021 passage; the lobbying did not stop the law but did contribute an active obstacle.
2 and 1, higher of the two, gives Necessary
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Wal-Mart Settles EEOC Religious Discrimination Suit, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2012
- US Company Must Stop Supplying China's Regime with DNA Surveillance Tech, Human Rights Watch, 2024-01-30
- Citing Multiple Human Rights Risks, Investors Escalate Engagements with Companies Doing Business in Uyghur Region, Investor Alliance for Human Rights
- USA: Apple, Nike and Coca-Cola among companies reportedly lobbying Congress to weaken Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Bill, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2021
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Organized a 57-investor, $4.4 trillion coalition pressing 47 companies to map and exit supply-chain links to forced labor and religious/ethnic persecution of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang region.
Named participant, alongside Storebrand Asset Management, in the investor coalition's public letter and engagement pressing companies on Uyghur-region human-rights risk.
Documented Thermo Fisher's sale of DNA-identification technology used in Xinjiang and Tibet surveillance and pressed the company for years before it halted those regional sales.
Among the business groups reported to have lobbied Congress in 2020-2021 to weaken provisions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
2 campaigns on record
Companies were pressed to stop lobbying against, and instead support, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act
Result: The Act passed and was signed into law December 23, 2021
The law passed largely intact despite lobbying to weaken it; companies did not succeed in watering down its core supply-chain provisions, though several continued to raise compliance concerns afterward.
Map value chains for links to the Uyghur Region, disengage from suppliers connected to human-rights violations, and publicly disclose progress
Result: No formal shareholder vote; a direct engagement and disclosure campaign
We found no documented set of positive corporate commitments from this round; instead, VF Corp and Inditex removed anti-forced-labor language from their own websites under commercial pressure from China, and Asics, Muji, Fila and Hugo Boss publicly committed to continue sourcing Xinjiang cotton.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Universal Declaration of Human Rights's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.