"PBI UK and Simmons & Simmons launch toolbox for defenders working on business and human rights", June 2018

This week marks the launch of an innovative new resource for defenders working on issues regarding business and human rights. It was produced by law firm Simmons & Simmons in collaboration with PBI UK.The Human Rights Defenders Toolbox is the first centralised online resource for rural communities and lawyers dealing with corporate human rights violations. It comprises a range of legal fact sheets designed to inform and assist human rights defenders in their struggles to uphold the rule of law in the face of corporate aggression. The launch could have a global impact as the Toolbox draws on international law and has universal application. The fact sheets focus on the obligations of companies to respect human rights, as set out in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The project seeks to address the fact that, despite the existence of these principles, gaps in their implementation mean that human rights defenders confronting corporate interests still face escalating violence...The Business and Human Rights Resource centre has documented over 850 of cases of human rights adverse practices by corporates...In this context, a campaign is growing among the human rights defenders and NGO communities for the development of a binding UN instrument on business and human rights...