Taking Stock: The business & human rights agenda is gaining ground but needs the UN to lead

Two years have passed since the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed Guiding Principles for implementation of the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy framework on business and human rights – now commonly referred to as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

As their second anniversary approaches, what is the state of the business and human rights agenda around the world and what can be done, including by the UN system, to make faster progress in mainstreaming corporate respect for human rights in the years ahead?

First, the good news. In a short time, the Guiding Principles have found an increasingly prominent place within the crowded CSR and Sustainability landscape. Their uptake is evident in the steadily rising number of companies who say they are integrating human rights due diligence into their operations. Similarly, a still small but growing number of governments are developing national action plans on business and human rights and including references to the Guiding Principles in related initiatives as can be seen most recently in a G8 statement concerning Myanmar and in US government reporting requirements for US-based companies investing in the country. Also important, the European Commission has sponsored a process to develop practical guidance on how the Guiding Principles should apply in particular industry contexts.

Key provisions of the Guiding Principles have also found their way into other standards like ISO 26000, which many countries, including China, are embracing enthusiastically as well as in new multi-stakeholder initiatives like the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers which has incorporated recommendations from the Guiding Principles on what constitutes effective grievance mechanisms for victims of abuses into its oversight mechanism. Existing industry groupings like the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) are doing the same.

These are just some of the encouraging signs that the Guiding Principles are taking hold in practice. But despite significant progress, it is more difficult to make the case that a tipping point is soon at hand, after which the Guiding Principles will inform state and corporate practice across the board. The sobering reality is that the business and human rights movement still remains far from the centre of international business and political agendas.

Of course, no one said it would be easy to turn a set of high-level UN backed principles into detailed rules of the road for all governments and companies. The recent factory collapse in Bangladesh, the most deadly in the history of the garment industry, and fears that many more such tragedies are possible is the latest painful reminder that affirmations of state duties and calls for corporate due diligence won’t on their own change behaviours or build needed capacities.

There remain too many companies that will knowingly, or negligently, take considerable risk with human lives and wellbeing. For such companies, wherever they might be in the world, stronger legal accountability and effective enforcement of the law is essential. If a host government is unwilling or unable to hold companies accountable, then home governments need to develop the legal capacity and political will to do so, while also investing in capacity building for host governments. Systemic change won’t be achieved as long as some companies feel they can "opt out" of international norms.

At the time of their endorsement in June 2011, the Guiding Principles were seen by many as a game changer for the corporate responsibility movement. Why? Because they established for the first time an authoritative framework on business and human rights, based on international legal principles and evolving social expectations, with broad support from governments, business and civil society. Advocates argued the Guiding Principles would become the global standard against which state performance and business behaviour in this area would be judged for the foreseeable future. Critics, however, contended the new UN framework was of limited value to victims of human rights abuses, because governments would remain unwilling or unable to enforce laws to control wayward behaviour of some companies.

Two years later, it is clear how far we’ve come in clarifying expectations and establishing shared norms on this complex subject. Now the even more difficult work of moving from broad consensus to effective implementation is underway. That starts by ensuring the Guiding Principles are incorporated at the policy level within governments, companies, international organisations and other institutions across the board, a task that has only begun, yet should be advancing more quickly.

The UN system at first glance seems to be one focal point where policy integration would be straightforward and could be used to leverage wider uptake of the Guiding Principles. At the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, member states heard from a range of UN agencies and programmes about their own efforts to promote corporate respect for human rights. Many valuable initiatives were highlighted but their overall impact appears to fall short of the system-wide coordination and reform called for a year ago by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a report on the role of the UN system in implementing the Guiding Principles.

The UN also has an important opportunity to move the Guiding Principles to the centre of the international policy agenda with post-2015 development plans to carry on from the UN Millennium Development Goals. A new report by a high-level panel appointed by the Secretary-General gives prominence to human rights and stresses the need for all institutions, including business, to be more transparent and accountable. But it too misses a chance to refer to and build on the consensus in the Guiding Principles. Any post-2015 outcome should squarely address the expectation that all public-private partnerships for development include due diligence processes to anticipate and mitigate negative impacts on human rights. It must also call for renewed efforts to use the Guiding Principles framework to prevent corporate and state abuses and encourage positive results for all.

In the time ahead, the UN needs to give even stronger leadership around the Guiding Principles. This means ensuring the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN expert-working group mandated to promote implementation of the business and human rights agenda are adequately resourced to engage governments and companies on difficult implementation tasks. It also means putting in place, as the Secretary-General has requested, processes to bring the UN’s own operations, including its approaches to investment management, procurement and partnerships with the business sector, in line with the Guiding Principles. Doing so in a strategic and highly visible way won’t solve all problems, but would send a powerful signal to governments and companies around the world that the time has come for more systemic action.

Moving business and human rights to the centre of global political and business agendas is an ambitious aim. Making faster progress requires us all to do more – including as consumers who must demand – and be willing to pay for – a more ethical global marketplace and not just a more efficient one. Robust enforcement of good regulation by states, access to fair grievance mechanisms for victims and effective prosecution of corporate abusers are all key to ultimate success. But in the end, the Guiding Principles are a product of the United Nations and should be embraced as the organisation works to reinvent itself for the 21st century. Two years on, UN leadership on business and human rights still matters.

Related Commentary:

• Taxing Human Rights? A new report says that the moral argument makes business sense
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• Another factory tragedy: How will Bangladesh and the world react?
  - 26 April 2013, by Salil Tripathi
• Taking stock of business and human rights in the United States
  - 23 April 2012, by Amy Lehr
• Progress in Corporate Accountability
  - 04 February 2013, by John Ruggie