Business and Human Rights
This section aims at providing an overview on latest developments related to Business and Human Rights. To be receive the latest updates on the topic, please don't hesitate to contact Jan Kopper jk@csreurope.org
In June 2008, after three years of extensive research and consultations with business, governments and civil society on fivecontinents, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative (SRSG) on Business and Human Rights, JohnRuggie, proposed a policy framework for managing business and human rights challenges. It is based on three pillars: the stateduty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect humanrights; and greater access by victims to effective remedy, judicial and non-judicial.The Human Rights Council unanimously welcomed the "Protect, Respect and Remedy" framework, marking the first time that aU.N. intergovernmental body had taken a substantive policy position on the subject of business and human rights. The Councilthen extended the SRSG’s mandate until 2011 with the task of “operationalizing” and promoting the framework.
For further information: http://www.business-humanrights.org/SpecialRepPortal/Home
Building on the UN initiative on business on human rights, the European Commission is currently assessing how Professor John Ruggie's "Protect, Respect, Remedy" framework can be operationalized at the European level.As a first step, the European Commission has initiated a study of the existing EU and member state legislation in order to identify governance gaps and areas of legal uncertainty for European businesses, and to assess opportunities for improvement. The study seeks to clarify the existing legal framework for human rights and environmental issues applicable to European enterprises operating outside the European Union. The results are going to be presented in July 2010, and will be integrated into the Communication on EU CSR policy expected in early 2011. Thomas Koenen, Head of office of the German CSR network econsense and member of the board of CSR Europe, participated in the stakeholder steering committee accompanying the study on behalf of CSR Europe and Eurochambers.
CSR Europe remains active on the topic and will explore with members new tools and opportunities in this field. In light of the current European and International context, CSR Europe, in collaboration with econsense, is happy to present their study on Human Rights Impact Assessment study. Impact Assessment instruments are emerging as innovative tools by which companies can systematically analyze and manage pro-actively the human rights implications of their activities. Both human rights organizations and the business community promote this concept as a way to induce company learning and operationalise human rights in companies. As the instrument matures, it can significantly contribute to a workable conceptualization of business responsibilities for human rights.
This paper aims to contribute and complement the study commissioned by the European Commission in giving an overview on how the business community itself is moving along human rights compliance in their operations mainly by giving an insight into existing concepts, challenges and opportunities. This is a first step in identifying the status quo on Human Rights from a company’s perspective and aims to be a basis to open the dialogue with policy-makers on the current needs of companies to further improve their pro-active approach on Human Rights, thus the report identifies a number of areas for further improvement:
- Since impact assessments are resource and time‐intensive, practical solutions need to be developed on how to implement them most efficiently.
- The lack of clear definitions and standards regarding business obligations for Human Rights so far limits the objectivity and comparability of such tools. Closer alignment of the pro-active approaches to Human Rights (impact assessment tools) with the responsive aspects (reporting on Human Rights Indicators) increases the opportunity for benchmarking and mutual learning.
- The use of Impact Assessment tools raises issues of transparency, accountability and disclosure.
For further tools and information on Human Rights:
- GRI, A Resource Guide to Corporate Human Rights Reporting
- GRI, Human Rights Indicators
‐ The LARRGE guide has been launched on the 1st of June. This Guide provides practitioners with an overview of more than 50 excellent CSR tools. All tools have been evaluated as to their compliance with labour and work related human rights standards. For more information, visit http://www.larrge.eu/%E2%80%90
- Research center on Business and Human Rights http://www.business-humanrights.org/
‐ The French Foreign and European Affair Ministry recently launched a study on Human Rights conducted by Michel Doucin, French Ambassador for CSR and Bioethics. (This study is currently only available in French) Analyse des notions de « due diligence » et de « sphère d’influence » dans le contexte du respect des droits de l’homme par les entreprises : enjeux de la définition du champ d’application des standards en matière de RSE.
