This week, Norwegian police raided Telenor’s headquarters in Oslo. The company is now under investigation for suspected complicity in crimes against humanity, alongside a separate suspected breach of Norway’s sanctions law, both tied to its former operations in Myanmar.
The allegations centre on the period after Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, when Telenor’s local subsidiary is said to have repeatedly handed over historical customer traffic data to the military regime, at the same time as that regime was carrying out widespread abuses against civilians. A separate civil case, brought by Myanmar civil society groups, alleges the data was used to target anti-coup activists, one of whom was later executed. Telenor has said it faced an impossible situation, with staff at risk if orders were refused.
Whatever the courts decide, the case sits squarely in the territory the UN Guiding Principles call conflict-affected and high-risk areas, or CAHRA, and in the specific set of obligations that apply there: heightened human rights due diligence.
From human rights due diligence to heightened human rights due diligence
The Guiding Principles are built around proportionality: the higher the risk, the more complex the process needs to be. In CAHRA, that has concrete consequences. A company needs to work out not only whether it causes, contributes to, or is directly linked to a human rights impact, but the same for its impact on the conflict itself, since in these contexts the two are rarely separable. Businesses are expected to watch for early “red flags,” such as restrictions on communication channels, increased hate speech targeting specific groups, or signs of militia recruitment, and treat these as triggers to initiate or update their due diligence. As the guide puts it: if in doubt, carry it out. And where a company decides to exit, the exit itself needs a strategy, because a hasty withdrawal can cause as much harm as staying too late.
This isn’t unique to telecoms, or to Myanmar. Any company operating in a market shaped by armed conflict, occupation, or widespread violence faces the same set of questions, and the same expectation that it can show, not just claim, how it addressed them.
Navigating compliance in complex markets
Cases like this show why human rights due diligence in complex markets isn’t a compliance exercise sitting apart from how a business is run. It shapes core operating decisions: what to hand over and to whom, when to stay and when to leave. Enact can help you find solutions to multifaceted challenges including:
→ Conflicts of domestic and international laws
→ Conflict-sensitive areas
→ Situations of war where International Humanitarian Law applies
Find out more under our services in Global Compliance & Complex Markets.
Want to discuss the challenges your business is facing?
We’d be happy to explore how you can build heightened human rights due diligence into how your business operates in complex or conflict-affected markets. Contact us here or at info@enact.se