"IHRB at the 2016 UN Annual Forum on Business & Human Rights," 8 Nov 2016

...IHRB is co-organising, moderating or speaking at a number of sessions.

The Role of Companies in Addressing Legal and Societal Discrimination Against LGBTI People

Monday 14 November
15:00 - 16:20
Room XXVII

• Christie Constantine, Global Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, Baker & McKenzie
• Kathryn Dovey, Director of National Contact Point Coordination, OECD
• Frank Mugisha, Director, Sexual Minorities Uganda
• Yves Nissim, VP, head of Transformation and operation in CSR at France Telecom-Orange
• Salil Tripathi, Senior Advisor of Global Issues, Institute for Human Rights and Business

Human Rights in the Context of Mega-Sporting Events 

Tuesday 15 November
09:00 - 10:20
Room XXI

Sport has a unique capacity to inspire humanity, and mega-sporting events (MSE) have great potential to positively impact the lives of people in the countries that host them.  But such large-scale events also involve significant risks to human rights and labor rights. After years of rising public concern in the arena of major global sports tournaments new collaborative efforts are needed.

On 13th-14th October 2016, the U.S. Department of State, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and IHRB co-hosted the global “Sporting Chance Forum on Mega-Sporting Events and Human Rights”, which sought to highlight and devise effective strategies to address the human rights challenges associated with every stage of the lifecycle of mega-sporting events.

The aim of this session is to present the ongoing multi-stakeholder dialogue process on this matter as well as a set of principles on collective action to address human rights challenges related to Mega-sporting events and answer to questions from the audience.

Eradicating Worker-Paid Recruitment Fees

Tuesday 15 November
16:40 - 18:00
Room XXVII

In this session, IHRB's John Morrison will lead a conversation to discuss what concrete action is required to tackle one of the root causes of modern slavery - worker fees. IKEA and Marks & Spencer, both members of the Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment, will make a bold call to action for collaborative leadership by global companies to eradicate worker-paid recruitment fees in the next ten years, based on the Employer Pays Principle. The US State Department will discuss the importance of the role of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and the discussion will explore what part investors and workers’ organisations can and must play in pushing for higher standards.

Leadership, Leverage and the Special Challenges of Big Data

Wednesday 16 November
15:00 - 16:20
Room XXIII

Big Data will be one of the greatest human rights challenges for societies in the future – across many areas of government and business. Yet public awareness of the way in which information concerning them is collected, held and used is very low and businesses have tended to focus on the many advantages of such data more than the associated responsibilities. Obtaining and deploying large sets of data by businesses present unique challenges for embedding human rights into the internal workings of the corporation, and into the company’s role in a supply chain. Leadership in standard setting and the duty to exercise leverage both have special profiles when Big Data is the concern.

This session will draw on the work being carried out by the multi-disciplinary 'Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project' at the University of Essex, Human Rights Centre. The session will also make use of the insights and recommendations resulting from the IHRB-Wilton Park meeting on the issue in June 2016.