What solutions could help us overcome the challenges that remain in implementing the UNGPs in a rapidly evolving context? Phil Bloomer addressed the 14th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in November 2025.

Watch the recording from Geneva or read below.

The greatest challenges for our civil society movement for human rights in business arise from the core drivers of abuse by companies in markets worldwide. 

Our world’s inequality emergency lies at the root of this – as Joseph Stiglitz reported last week to the G20, we have organised our economies and business environment so that of all the wealth created by humanity in the last decade, the richest 1% of the world’s population have captured over 40%, while the poorest 50% gained just 1%.

This obscene inequality of wealth and power lies also at the centre of a second driver of corporate abuse: the ecological crisis and the obstacles to building a fair and fast transition to green economies, amid the tumult of powerful vested interests attempting to block the end to fossil fuel extraction.

A third major driver of abuse is the technological revolution that is upon us, which, despite its potential for human emancipation, is driving immense inequality: where Elon Musk can demand a USD 1 trillion wage from Tesla while child labour and forced labour remain in the mineral supply chains of EV batteries.

Whether in the tech transition or the transition to green economies, if governments and companies superimpose these global shifts on highly unequal societies and value chains, we cannot be surprised if they further entrench poverty and inequality. The wealth produced in these transitions will accrue upwards in companies’ value chains, and the costs and risks will be passed down to the most vulnerable.

To address inequality and instead create fair outcomes from these transitions, we need vibrant democracies and decisive governments willing to listen to their peoples and bring systemic change that delivers shared prosperity. Companies need to bring deliberate design to deliver shared prosperity through new business models and new shared ownership models. We are already seeing signs of this emerging in the renewable energy sector.

Poor governance of these transitions is one of the reasons why we have crises of democracy and human rights in many countries. Public trust is cratering as many people do not see the current economic model, nor the transitions, working for them. And Stiglitz would suggest they are right.

This concentration of wealth in key business sectors is corrupting our democratic processes. So European states are assailed by reactionary business associations, pushed to deregulate and abandon key principles within the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the Digital Services Act, Digital Marketing Act, and AI Act. Norway, with its noble tradition of human rights promotion, has taken the shocking decision to suspend the ethics committee of the sovereign wealth fund.And yet in contrast, key governments across Asia, Latin America and Africa are designing welcome new due diligence laws which we can support.

In this new context, what are some of the strategies for civil society that might help make change happen? I offer a few thoughts in genuine humility.

Perhaps the first is for our movement to make further efforts to get out of our silo. It sometimes feels that the business and human rights movement is hermetically sealed from the rest of the movement for economic and climate justice – we can learn from the workers’ and Indigenous Peoples’ movements among us and contribute more to broader movements for economic and climate justice. Our own organisation is seeking to build links with the new economics movement.

We can also get better at reaching out to the general public and explaining the central benefits of human rights principles at the centre of economies and business. Just one burning example: we won’t get effective regulation of Gen AI without politicians feeling the heat of public opinion to counter tech giants’ billion-dollar lobby efforts to dismantle citizens’ essential protections from digital harm. 

A second strategic shift could be to re-balance our offensive and defensive strategies. In these difficult times, it is tactically astute to recalibrate and invest in the defence of our valuable – if imperfect and partial – advances of the last two decades and insist there is no roll-back or back-sliding by companies, investors and governments.

But we must never abandon our efforts to drive the vision of a better world – as the ancient Psalms say – where there is no vision, the people perish!

Finally, almost all of us are facing shrinking resources and more turbulent waters. Our organisations have to make tough choices, and all choice involves loss, and all loss involves grief. But, to stay relevant as a movement, we have to keep evolving and focusing our resources where the biggest risks are generated, and where the more likely advances are possible. 

These areas will also be where the greatest risks are for the brave defenders of human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers’ rights, and environmental rights– and they need our fullest support as a broad movement, through zero tolerance policies from companies, anti-SLAPP legislation by states, and explicit and sustained solidarity from across civil society. Only with their voices heard loud and clear can we sustain the vision and hope on which our diverse and powerful movement depends.