"Human rights: where is your leverage?", 5 Nov 2014

Within the [UN] Guiding Principles [on Business and Human Rights], companies are expected to have a human rights policy and a process of due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their human rights impacts, as well as processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts they cause or contribute to...The Guiding Principles recognise that business actions will vary based on whether the enterprise is directly causing an adverse impact or if it is involved due to its business relationships as well as the extent of leverage it has in addressing the impact...The concept of leverage within the Guiding Principles gets to the heart of what companies can realistically ‘do’...If a company has caused (or may cause) human rights impacts, then under the Guiding Principles it should cease or prevent the action causing the harm and remediate the harm.  If a company has contributed (or may contribute) to the harm, then it should cease or prevent the action and use its leverage to mitigate the risk as well as contributing to remediation...Companies across all industry sectors need to understand their leverage and how they can use this to positively address and promote human rights in the region and globally.