2011 Program

2011 ENGAGING BUSINESS: IMPLEMENTING RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Sponsored by the U.S. Council for International Business, the U.S Chamber of Commerce and the International Organization of Employers

Overview

Beginning in the mid-1990s, there has been a steady rise in the expectation of companies to meet their corporate responsibility to respect human rights. In June 2008, after extensive consultations with business, governments and civil society, Prof. John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, proposed the “Protect, Respect, Remedy” framework for managing business and human rights challenges:

• The State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business enterprises;
• The corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and
• Access to remedy by victims of abuses.

The UN Human Rights Council unanimously welcomed the Framework and asked the Special Representative to develop “guiding principles” to help put it into practice. In November 2010, Prof. Ruggie issued the draft “Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework,” which provides recommendations to States and enterprises on 29 areas that fall under the UN Framework. The final version of the Guiding Principles will be published in March 2011 and is expected to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2011.

The meeting reviewed the Guiding Principles in order to better understand how to implement the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and offered a unique opportunity to work through this important new set of recommendations with Professor Ruggie and other leaders in the field, as well as to learn from other companies from a range of sectors. Participants came away from the conference with a better understanding of how to help their companies implement a due diligence process that will prevent and avoid adverse human rights impacts.