What are National Action Plans (NAPs)?

National Action Plans or NAPs are policy documents created by governments which set out priorities, actions and commitments regarding various topics or issue areas. They are a blueprint for action and help chart a course for governments to accelerate, institutionalise and better coordinate efforts to respond to certain challenges. NAPs are also a means for civil society and multilateral institutions to engage in consultation with, track and assess the actions of the government in implementing its commitments. Historically, governments have adopted NAPs to address wide ranging issues including women’s rights, climate change, cyber security and sustainable development.  The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights recommended that all states adopt national action plans to promote and protect human rights.

In 2014, the Human Rights Council called on all member states to develop NAPs to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). In this context, NAPs are the first step in articulating concrete commitments and goals towards protecting against adverse human rights impacts involving business enterprises.

Research by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) shows that there are currently 30 countries that have NAPs in place, and 16 countries that are in the process of developing one. DIHR’s 2018 analysis showed that the countries with NAPs in place contribute to 45.6% of global GDP and account for 43.6% of global imports.

The Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG) provides guidance on National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights. As noted by the UNWG, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach. However, as best practice, an NAP should include the following components in its structure:

1. Prevention, mitigation and remedy: The commitments in the NAP should be aimed towards preventing, mitigating and remedying current and potential adverse impacts. Priority should be given to the most severe violations and to those where there is leverage to change situations on the ground.
2. Context: The NAP provides information about the broader human rights, development, CSR or labour-related context of the country. As actions under the NAP need to address actual or potential business-related human rights abuses, they need to be context-specific.
3. Priorities and planned activities: The NAP should then address what current and planned activities the government will undertake with respect to addressing adverse business-related human rights impacts. In doing this, governments should draw on the Guiding Principles directed at governments in pillars I and III of the UNGPs.

The UNWG’s guidance notes that NAPs should have a “smart mix” of mandatory and voluntary, international and national measures. Some examples of implementing the UNGPs through actions in the NAP include:

• Clarifying the responsibilities of state-owned or controlled businesses and ensuring that effective human rights due diligence is a part of such responsibilities;
• Making public-private partnerships in development assistance conditional on a company’s human rights record;
• Allocating adequate resources to the monitoring of human rights impacts;
• Introducing legal requirements with respect to community engagement and consent (such as preserving the norm of Free, Prior and Informed Consent);
• Ensuring that the gendered impacts of rights abuses are taken into account;
• Recognising and protecting indigenous rights and land rights;
• Ensuring that development efforts are undertaken with a rights-based approach.

To ensure that there is effective accountability, NAPs should aim to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART).

NAPs should also provide for the strengthening of existing mechanisms or laws. Whether this is improving measures to combat corruption, strengthening the enforcement and protection of labour laws, improving access to justice and courts or improving law enforcement more broadly, governments should identify the ways in which current mechanisms are effective in protecting human rights.

1. Implementation and monitoring: The NAP should specify how the planned activities will be monitored and implemented. This can be through collaboration across different government departments as well as through multi-stakeholder monitoring.
2. Updates: An important part of this is the commitment to provide follow-up reports on the implementation of NAP activities and the evaluation of the impact of the NAP.

Given the multitude of diverse situations and contexts in which business-related human rights violations can occur, organisations such as the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable have developed sector-specific guidance on how human rights issues related to the private security, tech and the extractives sectors can be addressed in NAPs. Similarly, there are guidance documents available on addressing children’s rights and the protection of human rights defenders in NAPs.

Although governments are the primary ‘pen-holders’ on the drafting of NAPs, the process of developing these plans should be participatory, with input from all the main stakeholders. Rights-holders, or those whose rights may be adversely impacted by business activities, should be given meaningful opportunity to contribute. To this end, the NAP process should ensure that barriers to participation such as geography, lack of resources and capacity or fear of reprisals, are eliminated.

Ultimately, the NAP process is as important as the NAP itself as it can start a conversation across different groups, spanning government, business, civil society, trade unions, communities, consumers and academia. An inclusive process with wide proactive participation of stakeholders will ensure that the NAP will have wider uptake and acceptance.

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) assessed various NAPs and found some of the following shortcomings in their 2017 report: 

• Future commitments: Most NAPs provide a detailed recount of actions taken by the state in the past but in most cases, actions for the future were vague. To ensure that states can be held to account for their efforts, actions should be clear, specific, measurable and time-bound. 
• Regulation and binding instruments: A critical weakness in NAPs to date has been the lack of commitment towards legally binding instruments to ensure that human rights are respected, that businesses are held accountable and that there are avenues for remedy. Most actions are focused on voluntary measures, training, awareness and consultation. While such actions are important, regulatory measures and hard laws are crucial to ensure meaningful change. 
• Access to remedy: Most NAPs fail to address barriers to access to remedy for corporate human rights abuse occurring at home or abroad. Most actions regarding access to remedy solely focus on the use of regional or international initiatives or non-judicial remedies such as the OECD National Contact Point. In order to address their responsibilities under Pillar III of the UNGPs, states must commit to improving access to courts and judicial remedies for victims of rights abuse in their NAPs.
• Implementation and follow-up: While NAPs are increasingly including information regarding which government agency is responsible for the implementation of individual actions points, NAPs need to do better with respect to outlining how the commitments and actions will be reviewed and who will be responsible for following up on them.    

NAPs can directly or indirectly impact businesses, particularly where they promulgate commitments to legislating or regulating business impact on human rights.

Some ways in which businesses can interact with NAPs and the NAP process include the following:

• It is important that businesses understand the actions outlined in NAPs in both their home countries and in the countries where they conduct their operations.
• Businesses should consider how they could work with civil society and NGOs to call out governments to implement the commitments they establish in the NAPs.
• Businesses might use the NAP process and contacts within specific states as a platform to engage in dialogue with governments on issues they find difficult or challenging to address. This might be complex issues regarding responsible exit from contexts with high risks of human rights violations or conflict.

Other IHRB resources:

• Submission to the US State Department on Updating the US NAP on Responsible Business Conduct September 1, 2022
• India’s Business & Human Rights National Action Plan April 14, 2020
• Comments on the Thai National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights March 15, 2019