The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has become the world’s leading independent resource on the subject. Our website is updated hourly with news and reports about companies’ human rights impacts worldwide – positive and negative.
We seek responses from companies to allegations of misconduct: thus ensuring that our coverage is balanced and encouraging companies to address concerns raised by civil society.
The website covers over 4000 companies, over 180 countries. It receives over 1.5 million hits per month. Topics include discrimination, environment, poverty & development, labour, access to medicines, health & safety, security, trade.
“An essential guide to the world's companies and their records on human rights.”
Guardian newspaper
“No debate can move forward, no positive change can be made, without facts. The Resource Centre is the only website to provide such a broad range of balanced information on business and human rights – company by company, country by country, issue by issue.”
Mary Robinson (Director of the Ethical Globalization Initiative, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland)
Purpose
• To encourage companies to respect human rights, avoid harm to people, & maximise their positive contribution
• To provide easy, one-stop access to information for companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others, whether they are experienced or new to the subject
• To facilitate constructive, informed decision-making and public discussion
An international organization
The Resource Centre has offices in the UK and USA. We have regional researchers based in India, Senegal, South Africa and Ukraine. See Staff for more details.
We plan to recruit further regional researchers in Latin America and the Middle East, who will bring under-reported concerns from those regions to international attention.
Status
The Resource Centre is an independent non-profit, in a collaborative partnership with Amnesty International sections and leading academic institutions.
- UK: Registered Charity in England & Wales (no. 1096664)
- USA: tax-exempt non-profit organisation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
The website
The website links to a wide range of materials published by: NGOs; companies & business organisations; UN, ILO & other intergovernmental organisations; governments & courts; policy experts & academics; social investment analysts; journalists; etc.
The site contains materials in English, Spanish and French, and a few in Portuguese and German. We are currently expanding our coverage in non-English languages.
The United Nations, ILO, business organisations, NGOs and universities have, at their request, linked their websites to the Resource Centre site.
Weekly Updates: including company responses to concerns
Our free Weekly Updates send the top stories on business & human rights to thousands of opinion leaders worldwide. We invite companies to include responses to reports that criticise their conduct. This keeps the Updates balanced, and encourages companies to publicly address important concerns being raised by civil society. Examples of cases featured in the Updates include:
- Angola: A report on serious abuses by security companies for diamond operations (with responses by the companies and follow-up by the report's author). Click here
- Companies receive awards for their contribution to the Millennium Development Goals. Click here
- China: Allegations that major banks were holding investments in a Chinese company using forced prison labour (with the banks’ responses and journalists’ follow-up). Click here
- So. Africa: Union hails car firms including DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Volkswagen, Continental Tires for strong HIV/AIDS programmes. Click here
To subscribe to the Updates click here
Custom Alerts
Custom Alerts help you keep track of news and reports about companies and subjects of your choice. Subscribers receive an automatic email when we add an item to the website in one of their selected categories. For example Pfizer could choose to be alerted anytime an item is added about “Pfizer”, “Merck”, “Pharmaceutical“, “South Africa”, “Health” and/or “Access to Medicines”. Find out more here.
International network
Our International Advisory Network of over 80 experts is chaired by Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland.
Our Academic Partners are 20 institutions recognised internationally for their expertise in issues relevant to business and human rights.
UN Special Representative on business & human rights: web portal
The Resource Centre hosts a portal for John Ruggie, UN Special Representative on Business & Human Rights. The portal was set up at his request to facilitate communication and sharing of materials related to his mandate.
Contact us
We welcome your comments, responses to items on our site, and suggested additions.
The Resource Centre has offices in London and California. We also have researchers in Hong Kong, South Africa and New York. Contact us here.
Disclaimer
The appearance of hyperlinks within the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre library/website does not constitute endorsement by the Resource Centre of the websites they lead to or the information contained therein. The Resource Centre does not exercise any editorial control over the information in those other websites, and cannot guarantee their factual accuracy. As with any library, our purpose is to provide for the user a wide selection of materials representing diverse views on matters of public interest. The Resource Centre's collaborative partners are not involved in compiling the library.
