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Report

22 Mar 2019

Author:
Global Business Initiative & Clifford Chance

New report with key elements for companies to navigate changing business & human rights legal landscape

"Business and Human Rights: Navigating a Changing Legal Landscape", Mar 2019

Businesses are increasingly required to implement human rights due diligence processes and/or to report on how they manage human rights-related issues. In our third joint briefing, the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights and Clifford Chance consider these developments, focusing on what companies need to know to position themselves to navigate the changing legal landscape...

Ten years ago, there were few laws requiring businesses to implement human rights due diligence and reporting processes. Now, governments increasingly expect businesses to actively manage their human rights impacts and are introducing laws to encourage this approach. These new initiatives increase the legal – as well as commercial and reputational – risks for businesses that are not taking effective steps to identify and address human rights issues in their business activities and relationships. These legal initiatives are not uniform in approach. They tackle different issues and focus on different subjects. Some focus on a specific human rights issue, such as human trafficking, forced labour or child labour, or on abuses related to particular commodities, such as conflict minerals whilst others take a broader approach to reporting on all human rights issues...

Key trends and commonalities:

These initiatives aim to increase transparency and drive action through mandatory public reporting.

These initiatives include mandatory content requirements, although they vary in the degree of discretion accorded to business to determine the types of information to be disclosed.

Some initiatives also introduce mandatory human rights due diligence requirements...