Corporate Law Tools
Leading corporate law firms are working with UN Special Representative John Ruggie to identify, in a series of 42 reports, whether and how national corporate law principles and practices currently foster corporate cultures respectful of human rights. The full list of participants and jurisdictions to be covered was announced in March 2009 (see announcement [PDF]). The participants met for a project meeting in June 2009 (see the report of the meeting [PDF]).
Osgoode Hall Law School at York University (Toronto, Canada) convened an expert consultation on "Corporate Law & Human Rights" in support of the Corporate Law Tools Project, 5-6 November 2009.
- announcement of the consultation
- summary report of expert meeting [PDF]
New report: "Overarching Trends and Observations" [PDF] - Based on the participating firms’ surveys of over 40 individual jurisdictions, this report was published by the Special Representative in July 2010. See also Prof. Ruggie's commentary on the report, "Review Links Corporate and Securities Law and Human Rights", 27 Jul 2010.
The reports prepared by the corporate law firms follow a template [PDF] developed by Vanessa Zimmerman, Legal Adviser to the Special Representative. Special Representative Ruggie has issued a note [DOC] explaining the project and reports, and how they relate to his work generally.
Newest report in the series: South Africa. This brings the total to 13 reports in the series now available -- see below. Further reports will be added as available. All reports are in PDF format.