A complaint was filed against Hyatt Hotels Corporation today with the U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, within the U.S. Department of State. The complaint concerns the activities of Juniper Hotels, in which Hyatt is a key investor, in relation to a proposed five-star hotel construction project in Assam state in northeast India that is causing adverse human rights and environmental impacts, in alleged violation of the OECD Guidelines.
Hyatt Hotels is a global hospitality enterprise with more than 1,450 hotels and resorts across over 80 countries on six continents. In Hatikhuli Bagicha Gaon near Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve in Assam, Hyatt and its affiliate Juniper Hotels are seeking to develop a five-star hotel and resort of international standard with 115 keys on a 9.9 acre-land based on a public-private partnership between Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) of the State Government and Jenipro Hotels that was acquired by Juniper Hotels in 2023.
The project has impacted the livelihood of 45 Indigenous Adivasi families (totaling 400 to 500 persons) with land dispossession, forced evictions, and physical violence exerted against the Adivasi community members and their defenders during the land acquisition process for the project. Further, the land allotted for the project sits less than 1km away from the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with ramifications for an animal corridor of the park, including in breach of India’s Supreme Court orders.
While the Assam government claims that the land slated for the project is government owned, it belongs to the Adivasi families, who have subsisted on these lands for generations and possess government issued documents proving their permanent ownership or long-term contractual tenant status over the land. The project commenced in 2022 and has continued to contructing permanent structures without obtaining Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of the affected families nor meaningfully engaging with them to discuss impact mitigation and remediation methods. As a result, many affected families and communities who have peacefully resisted the project through dialogue, protests, petitions, and legal action have been targeted for assault, intimidation, and unreasonable police detainment by the pro-hotel mob and state police. In addition, the families have been denied access to their own farmlands, which they economically depend on, and one family’s house was even mowed down by a bulldozer.
Hyatt, which is directly linked to Juniper Hotels as its brander and operator, has remained complacent to these atrocities. The rights of the Adivasi families are protected under the international laws such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as well as the OECD Guidelines that explicitly recognize and protect particularly vulnerable groups such as Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve is home to several endangered species such as the one-horned rhinocerus, Indian elephants, and Bengal tigers, which are protected by the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiveristy Framework.
The complaint alleges failures by Hyatt to conduct effective human rights due diligence for its involvement in the five-star hotel project and use its leverage as a manager of Juniper Hotels to prevent, mitigate, and remediate human rights and environmental impacts on the Indigenous Adivasi community.
The complainants insist that Hyatt 1) acknowledge that it has a direct link to the harms on the affected communities through its relationship with Juniper Hotels, 2) engage in a dialogue with the affected communities and their representatives to ascertain the concerns of the affected communities and seek ways to resolve them, and 3) consider responsible disengagement measures, including the possibility of (temporary) suspension of its relationship with the Juniper Hotels to even permanent disengagement, while seeking to exercise its leverage to mitigate and remedy the harms.
They thus seek mediation by the U.S. NCP to get the Hyatt to comply with the OECD Guidelines. For that, they call on the Hyatt Hotels to:
(1) Obtain FPIC from all members of the 45 affected Adivasi families as a central component of comprehensive human rights and environmental due diligence processes;
(2) Make a good faith demonstration of its intention to ensure that the OECD Guidelines are implemented by publicly requesting that the State Government of Assam halt construction of permanent structures within the proposed land, dismantle the fences demarcating the land, and withdraw all police battalion stationed by the land for the purposes of the concerned project.
(3) Conduct human rights due diligence in a manner that is consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
(4) Complete and publicly disclose a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment that takes into consideration the concerns and issues raised by the Adivasi families, as well as other locals through multiple interviews with local news journals. The EIA should be based on data collected over 1-year consistent with the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 requirements.
(5) Issue a public statement that states Hyatt opposes and condemns the use of force or repression under any circumstances.
The complainants have not disclosed the full complaint document in accordance with the NCP’s confidentiality requirements.
