The proliferation of corporate human rights legislation across the world is focusing business attention on human rights due diligence. From a practitioner’s perspective, however, the increased commitment carries its own risks. The different regulatory regimes—due diligence, disclosure, and trade sanctions—can create perverse incentives for global business. And a legal compliance approach can sometimes impede best practice. This panel will seek to analyze whether legal proliferation is in fact driving a better practice, or merely a rigid compliance-based approach to business respect for human rights.

Corporate responsibility to respect human rights and manage ESG risk is increasingly conflated by supporters and detractors alike with an obligation to take a stand on polarizing political issues – independently of whether the business is involved in any risk to stakeholders. But these are largely distinct and independent issues. BHR & ESG are largely focused on effective risk management. Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR) is frequently seen as more focused on advocacy. This panel will discuss the distinction between CPR and BSR/ESG and what that means for an effective sustainability strategy in a context of increasing political polarization.

Transparency is a core expectation of effective human rights due diligence and remedy. But what is reasonable for stakeholders to expect in terms of general and tailored disclosure? Where and how can businesses draw reasonable limits in response to stakeholder requests, especially in light of emerging business and human rights legislation granting greater rights to demand information?

Artificial intelligence has made great leaps forward in recent years, with implications for businesses across sectors. But the deployment of AI technologies implicates an array of rights from the right to privacy, to the right to work, to protection from discrimination. This panel will discuss how to assess those potential rights impacts and how to deploy AI responsibly.

The transition to a green economy is a global imperative. It is a need that carries tremendous opportunities and risks for workers, communities, and consumers. Companies have a central role to play in driving this evolution directly and through engagement on public policy. This panel will consider how business and government should consider, weigh, and address human rights risks in pursuit of their broader environmental ambitions.

Stakeholder engagement is a core element of effective human rights programs and due diligence, but it is too often just a form crisis management, shallowly formalistic, or narrow in scope. This session will explore how companies can practically enhance their stakeholder engagement processes to deliver long-term benefits.

“Living wage” is a core component of emerging law and stakeholder expectations, but the concept is challenging—from identifying context-tailored metrics to mapping the supply chain to ensuring practical ongoing evaluation and accountability. This panel will explore the practical challenges to understanding and implementing meaningful living wage commitments across global value chains.

Stakeholders and regulators increasingly expect corporate grievance mechanisms to be accessible to workers and communities affected by the sub-tier value chain, both upstream and downstream. The design of such mechanisms raises serious legal and practical concerns, from expanding liability to identifying the contours of the relevant supply chain.