Business and Human Rights

21 Pages Posted: 1 Jun 2022

Date Written: May 16, 2022

Abstract

International human rights standards were originally written by states to create a framework and set of goals for governmental action, and it was often argued that such standards did not apply to the private sector. For many, the obligations of businesses with respect to the subjects covered by international human rights standards were limited to compliance with applicable national laws, even if those laws failed to meet international standards. Certainly businesses can contribute to respecting and protecting human right rights by complying with the laws and regulations established by states; however, as time has gone by ideas have changed, albeit slowly, and there is now growing support for the notion that while the primary duty to protect human rights remains with national governments, businesses also have responsibilities to respect human rights in their operations and voluntarily assume accountability and responsibility for the environmental and social impacts of their operational activities.

One of the most highly publicized initiatives relating to the relationship between international human rights and the operations of business enterprises has been the "Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework” (“Guiding Principles”), which were endorsed by the Human Rights Council, the key independent UN intergovernmental body responsible for human rights, in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 2011. The Guiding Principles lay out what has become widely known as the “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework and require, among other things, that business enterprises have in place policies and processes appropriate to their size and circumstances, including a policy commitment to meet their responsibility to respect human rights; a human rights due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address their impacts on human rights; and processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts they cause or to which they contribute. Since they were first approved, the Guiding Principles have become the global standard for the respective roles and duties of states and businesses relative to human rights and have been integrated as central elements of other well-known international standards such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the International Organization for Standardization’s 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility.

Keywords: human rights, CSR, business and human rights

Suggested Citation

Gutterman, Alan, Business and Human Rights (May 16, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4111601 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4111601

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