The final chapter of the book reflects on its lessons, concluding that the responsiveness of NJMs to the dynamics lying behind grievances – understood as fields of struggle – is key to delivering remedy. This is true whether the relevant NJM is central to that struggle, or whether (as is more often the case) it plays a more peripheral or supportive role within broader processes of decentered regulation. Transnational NJMs may lack coercive power, but they span jurisdictions that state bodies have difficulty regulating. In principle, they have greater capacity to design new approaches as problems arise, benefiting from independence, shorter institutional histories and more capacity to experiment than state bodies, which can experience stronger institutional inertia and political constraints. To strengthen their capacity to build and sustain influence, NJMs should be designed to be nimble, with a range of functions and structures and resourced with staff capable of reading and navigating the deeply contested fields of business and human rights.

Chapter 7 draws together the findings of the book concerning the impact of NJM interventions on community and worker struggles to achieve remedy. Lessons are drawn from both widespread failure and small gains. ‘Success’ is more likely, in the sense that aggrieved communities and worker groups are more likely to attain the outcomes they pursue, when NJM interventions facilitate the influence of communities within wider fields of struggle. These interventions include NJMs enhancing the credibility and public awareness of the alleged rights violations, strengthening alliances between actors supportive of redress, leveraging aspects of state and business power that empowered those alliances and enhancing claimants’ skills in advocacy and negotiation. Nonetheless, effective NJM interventions depend on the characteristics of the relevant field of struggle, such as distributions of power within a given supply chain, distributions of business and civil society access to state power and prior histories of campaigning and political organisation in particular sectors and locations.