[Unofficial translation provided by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

“National ‘Human Rights Committee says ‘OECD's National Contact Points (NCPs) urgently need to be improved’’, 17 February 2025

The National Human Rights Commission said that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) National Contact Points (NCPs) need to improve their system by expanding the number of civilian members and extending their recommendations to labour and civil society.

The OECD established the OECD Guidelines for the Responsible Management of Multinational Enterprises in 2011 to prevent and remedy human rights violations that may occur in the activities of multinational enterprises. Anyone who suspects that a company is violating the guidelines can file a complaint with the NCP.

On 17 July, the NHRC recommended to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy to improve the NCP system by: increasing the diversity of NCP members; reviewing the delegation of ‘first assessment’ tasks; placing the NCP secretariat under the direct control of a national agency; establishing an advisory body; strengthening overseas NCP cooperation; and increasing the transparency of NCP activities.

...Currently, the NCP Secretariat is run by the Korea International Commercial Arbitration Centre, a private organisation. However, to enhance public accountability and the fairness and credibility of NCP operations, the NHRC stressed that it is necessary to consider a direct NCP secretariat by a state agency.

…‘We hope that through this recommendation, cases of human rights violations by companies can be effectively remedied through the improvement of the NCP system,’ the NHRC said, ’and we will continue to pay attention to the revision of relevant regulations and the implementation of system improvements.’