The Draft Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights

The
 mandate
 of
 United
 Nations
 (UN)
 Special
 Representative
 for
 business
 and
 human
 rights
 (the
 ‘Special
 Representative’)
 was
 created 
in 
2005 
to 
establish
 greater
 clarity 
concerning
 the 
human 
rights
 responsibilities
 of
 business
 enterprises. In June 2008, the Special Representative proposed the 
'Protect, 
Respect
 and 
Remedy' Framework to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), composed of three pillars:

• the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business
• the corporate responsibility to respect human rights
• greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial

The HRC unanimously approved the Framework in 2008 and extended the Special Representative's mandate for another three years. When doing so, the HRC asked the SRSG to provide additional concrete guidance to elaborate and clarify for companies, states, and other stakeholders how they can operationalise the Framework by taking practical steps to address business impacts on the human rights of individuals.

On 22 November 2010, the Special Representative proposed draft "Guiding Principles" for the Implementation of the Framework.

As
 currently
 drafted,
 the
 Guiding
 Principles
 represent
 an
 extremely
 important
 step
 for
 the
 international
 community 
in 
addressing 
the 
essential 
relationship 
between 
states,
 business 
and 
human
 rights.

The observations made in the IHRB submission are based on IHRB's practical experience of testing aspects of the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework over the past two years. Recommendations for changes and additions to the current draft are intended to strengthen the final version of the Guiding Principles, which the Special Representative will submit to governments for consideration and potential endorsement in June 2011.

In addition, IHRB has jointly submitted a second set of comments focused on integrating a gender perspective, co-produced by CSRM, ICCSR, Nottingham University Business School and the University of Witwatersrand.