Business & Human Rights

NGOs Petition CEDAW on Swiss "Tax Justice"

March 10, 2016

A group of nongovernmental organizations has petitioned the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW") to advance the global "tax justice" agenda in its upcoming review of Switzerland by reviewing the impacts of Switzerland's "opaque financial legislation" on women's rights and gender equality in developing countries.
LSE Project Releases BHR Guide on Investment Policymaking

March 10, 2016

The London School of Economics ("LSE") Investment & Human Rights Project has published a guide for policymakers on how to regulate investments in a way that furthers fulfillment of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ("BHR").
NGO Calls for Review of "Unfair" Tax Treaties

March 10, 2016

Arguing that tax avoidance in developing countries violates the human rights of these countries' citizens, the nongovernmental organization ActionAid has called for wealthy countries to review their tax treaties with poor countries for provisions that contribute to corporate avoidance of taxation and to rewrite these treaties to resemble the UN's model tax treaty.
Gap Reports Compliance with UN Sustainability Agenda

March 10, 2016

Vikas Vij writes that, following its release of a "sustainability report" containing data on its compliance with the UN's environmental and social agendas, apparel company Gap Inc. has announced that it will further pursue the sustainability goals set out by the UN and activists by cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent from 2015 levels by the year 2020.
International Court Finds Government BHR Violation

March 09, 2016

Chris Esdaile of the law firm Leigh Day writes that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found that Suriname violated the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ("BHR") by not requiring a mining company to perform a "human rights impact assessment" regarding the rights of indigenous people affected by its operations in the country.