Operating in conflict zones: heightened human rights due diligence in CAHRAs
GoodBlog | read time: 6 min
Published: 4 June 2026
Armed conflicts are multiplying and reshaping the way global business operates. In just five years, the number of conflicts worldwide has doubled. From Ukraine to Sudan, Myanmar to Gaza, companies are finding themselves drawn into the realities of operating in Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (CAHRAs) where instability can upend supply chains overnight and fundamentally alter risk exposure.
CAHRAs, as defined by the OECD and UNDP, are contexts characterised by armed conflict, widespread violence, fragile governance or systemic human rights abuses. These are environments where the normal safeguards that protect people such as functioning legal systems, labour inspection systems, and accountable security forces are weakened, absent, or compromised. For companies, this is no longer a peripheral risk: it is fast becoming a structural feature of global supply chains, affecting investment decisions and operational resilience.
Why business management of human rights needs to adapt in CAHRAs
Conflict exacerbates human rights risks, often intensifying existing vulnerabilities and reshaping the environment in which businesses operate. Institutions that would normally protect rights may weaken, collapse, or become complicit in abuses in a conflict-affected situation.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that companies involved in human rights abuses are rarely held accountable, largely due to the inefficiencies of the judicial system. This despite reports from the United Nations and the ICJ revealing that companies, alongside armed groups, militias, the military and government actors are associated with human rights abuses such as forced labour, population displacement, rape and other forms of sexual violence.
For communities, this can mean exposure to violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, forced displacement, destruction of homes and infrastructure, persecution, and loss of livelihoods. For workers, the risks are amplified further. Weak rule of law, economic instability, and the presence of armed actors increase the likelihood of exploitation, coercion, unsafe working conditions, and restrictions on freedom of association.
A report by PubMed Central for the National Library of Medicine showed how ethnic conflict within a country creates extreme risk for vulnerable employees. Workplaces in Tigray at the heart of Ethiopia’s civil war had the highest prevalence of sexual violence in all of Ethiopia’s regions.
What role does business have to play in this?
Organisations that find themselves operating in conflict-affected or high-risk areas cannot remain impervious to their situation. In a conflict zone, business activities will rarely be ‘neutral’ and are susceptible to influencing conflict dynamics, whether directly or indirectly. This includes through routine operations such as sourcing decisions, employment practices, security arrangements, procurement choices, financial flows, and relationships with third parties. Any of these routine activities can lead to businesses inadvertently purchasing from suppliers linked to conflict, making hiring decisions that influence local power dynamics exacerbated by conflict or making payments that end up being diverted to abusive state actors, militias or corrupt intermediaries.
An IMPACT report from 2025 on the DRC found that many private sector companies have failed to implement enhanced supply chain due diligence as set out in the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Minerals Supply Chains. Instead, companies are either turning a blind eye or becoming complicit through an over-reliance on industry schemes, ignoring red flags being raised by organisations such as the UN.
To prevent such involvement, business decisions must be made through a conflict-sensitive lens. This means understanding not only how conflict affects their operations, but also how their presence, decisions, and value chains may affect the conflict itself. In practice, this requires a shift from traditional risk management to a more dynamic and context-aware approach that integrates human rights, risk awareness, and conflict sensitivity.
What are the consequences of “business as usual”?
Applying standard human rights due diligence in CAHRAs is no longer sufficient. The risks are more severe, more fluid, and more interconnected with political and security dynamics.
The consequences of failing to adapt include:
- Legal risk, including potential complicity in serious human rights abuses or breaches of international humanitarian law. In the recent Lafarge case, the French multinational was found guilty of paying $6.5m in protection money to jihadist groups to keep its business running in Syria during the civil war.
- Operational disruption, as conflict dynamics impact supply chains, workforce safety, and market access. Shipping is particularly vulnerable to conflict as seen by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz in the Iran war leading to a surge in maritime war-risk insurance.
- Reputational damage, particularly where companies are perceived to be linked to conflict financing or abuse.
- Allegations of complicity, including aiding and abetting claims or sanctions exposure. Multinational fruit producer, Chiquita, was held responsible for the wrongful deaths of eight men killed by the United Self Defence Forces of Columbia (AUC) and ordered to pay $38.3m in damages to the families.
Because risks in CAHRAs are systemic and fast moving, businesses are increasingly expected to apply heightened human rights due diligence (hHRDD) as outlined in the This is not a box ticking exercise. It is a structured approach that ensures adverse impacts can be identified, prevented and mitigated in a highly volatile environment.
Key steps to implementing effective heightened human rights due diligence
Operating in CAHRAs requires a proactive, adaptive, and integrated approach to due diligence At GoodCorporation, we support organisations in moving beyond static compliance models towards continuous risk management systems that combine human rights, conflict sensitivity, and operational decision making.
hHRDD is both preventive and responsive. It requires companies to identify and assess not only adverse human rights impacts, but also how their activities may cause, contribute to, or be directly linked to adverse impacts within a conflict context.
Critically, businesses must understand the ways in which their activities in CAHRAs may influence conflict dynamics. This means making decisions through a conflict-sensitive lens, recognising that even routine operational choices can have unintended consequences.
Effective hHRDD reflects the OECD due diligence for Responsible Supply Chains and typically includes the following elements:
1. Mapping conflict dynamics
Companies need to develop a detailed understanding of the operating context. This includes identifying:
- drivers and triggers of conflict
- key actors, including state and non-state groups
- political and economic grievances
- patterns of violence and instability
- links between business activity and conflict dynamics
This goes beyond country risk analysis. It requires understanding the political economy of conflict and how business activity interacts with it at a local level.
2. Assessing the risk of contribution to harming people or communities
Businesses must assess whether they might:
- cause such harm directly
- contribute to harm through commercial relationships or decisions
- be linked to harm through suppliers, partners, or intermediaries
This includes risks such as conflict financing, discriminatory practices, land disputes, security arrangements, and engagement with high-risk third parties.
3. Engaging affected stakeholders safely
Stakeholder engagement is a critical part of hHRDD, helping companies understand how conflict and business operations are experienced by the people most directly affected. In CAHRAs, meaningful engagements provide essential insight into the conflict dynamics, the potential sources of harm, and mitigation measures that are credible, proportionate and context sensitive
Such engagement must be carefully designed. When working on stakeholder programmes in CAHRAs, GoodCorporation recommends:
- working with trusted local experts
- ensuring confidentiality and protection from retaliation
- adapting engagement methods to access constraints
- including marginalised and vulnerable groups
4. Taking appropriate action
Where human rights risks have been identified, companies are expected to respond proportionately, including:
- adapting business practices or supply chains
- strengthening oversight of partners and contractors
- using leverage to influence third party behaviour
- or, where necessary, when all leverage possibilities have been exhausted, considering disengagement, even if only temporarily.
5. Embedding governance and continuous learning
In fast changing conflict environments, due diligence is not a one-off exercise but a continuous process of reassessment and adaptation. To allow for iterative responses to changing environments, effective hHRDD therefore requires:
- enterprise risk management integration
- board level oversight
- escalation and decision-making frameworks
- ongoing monitoring and reassessment
- clear documentation of decisions and rationale
This ensures human rights and conflict risk considerations are embedded into business decisions rather than treated as an external compliance requirement.
Responsible exit in complex environments
In high-risk and conflict affected environments, companies should always prioritise mitigating harm by remaining engaged and using their leverage to address human rights risks, with disengagement considered only as a last resort when mitigation is no longer possible or responsible.
However, where risks cannot be adequately managed, businesses may face decisions about whether to continue, suspend, or exit operations. These decisions are highly complex in CAHRAs because withdrawal itself can sometimes create or exacerbate harm, including loss of livelihoods or reduced protection for vulnerable communities.
Responsible exit therefore requires careful, structured decision-making. It should be based on ongoing and heightened human rights due diligence and should take into account the potential consequences of withdrawal.
Where exit is necessary, it should be:
- planned and phased where possible
- informed by impact assessments
- communicated clearly and responsibly
- designed to minimise harm to workers and affected communities
- supported by appropriate mitigation measures
The objective is not simply withdrawal, but responsible transition that avoids compounding harm in already fragile environments.
Conclusion
Businesses operating in CAHRAs face some of the most complex human rights challenges. However, they also have significant potential to reduce harm and exercise positive influence through responsible decision-making.
Companies that implement heightened human rights due diligence are better able to understand risk, avoid complicity, and make informed choices about how to operate in unstable environments. In doing so, they align with the expectations of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and international humanitarian law and strengthen the resilience and integrity of their global operations.
GoodCorporation has considerable expertise in supporting companies operating in both conflict-affected and high-risk areas. Visit our Human Rights Due Diligence for CAHRAs webpage to find out more.
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