Business & Human Rights

NGOs Seek BHR Pressure by Clean Energy Investors

July 21, 2017

A group of nongovernmental organizations has launched an "investor briefing" counseling financiers of renewable energy projects on tools they should use, such as human rights "due diligence" and monitoring, to ensure that these projects comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (BHR).
Article: Counsel Must Play Role in "Corporate Citizenship"

July 21, 2017

An article from former General Electric Vice President and General Counsel Ben Heineman paints a broad picture of the need for general counsel to steer their corporations toward a concept of "corporate citizenship" resembling the "environmental, social, and governance" responsibilities recommended for businesses by UN agencies and activist groups.
NGOs Seek BHR Progress Through Contractual Obligations

July 21, 2017

A nongovernmental Worker-Driven Social Responsibility Network has published a paper criticizing voluntary corporate social responsibility commitments as insufficient and calling instead for worker-led initiatives for global labor rights in which workers contract with brands and retailers that agree to recognize human rights in their supply chains.
Paper: Business-led Reporting Schemes Are Ineffective

July 21, 2017

A group of academics has published a paper warning that the growing activist movement, beginning to take hold in the form of government regulation, toward business audits of their global supply chains to monitor and report environmental and human rights impacts is ineffective and merely serves as an "industry-led privatization of global governance."
UNESCO, FIFA Push for “Sustainability” in Sport

July 21, 2017

Leaders from the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) met to express mutual support for the UN’s “sustainable development” and women’s “empowerment” agendas.