ARTICLE 19 and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) have recently collaborated on a project to assist the Public Interest Registry (PIR), operator of .ORG and other top-level domain names, in its human rights efforts. [...]

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In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which apply to all companies, including internet infrastructure providers. Generally, it is expected that all companies exercise due diligence in their efforts to respect human rights and thereby avoid causing or contributing to adverse impacts on human rights. This requires companies to proactively monitor their operations and impacts for human rights concerns and provide remedies in case such concerns do arise.

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Some of our recommendations include the following, which cut across the entire organization:

• PIR should develop and incorporate a human rights policy or an explicit commitment to international human rights in its existing policies.
• PIR should update its employee handbook and related policies to explicitly address human rights and restate its privacy protections and expectations.
• PIR should develop up a Business Partner/Supplier Code of Conduct that clearly sets out PIR’s expectations around human rights and that can be used to improve the practices of the third-parties with whom PIR engages.
• PIR should ensure that its annual report has data shared with a human rights focus.