The Principles provide ‘guidelines for States and companies to prevent and address human rights abuses committed in business operations’ and clear up the question as to whether or not companies have a responsibility to respect human rights once and for all, they do.   

The Principles outline three steps that companies should take  to fulfil their responsibility to respect human rights: 

1. Publish a policy commitment to respect human rights 
2. Implement a human rights due diligence process  
3. Implement a remediation process  

Put simply, the responsibility for companies to respect human rights means that they must constantly be aware of their real and potential impact on the world, strive for improvement, and be as transparent as possible. 

Embedding human rights into company functions is an ongoing process which must always favour continuous improvement over ticking all the boxes as quickly as possible. In our experience, a significant development we have seen since the adoption of the Principles, is a tremendous change of mind-set within businesses. The process is a lengthy one, but implementing a human rights policy is now on the agenda of the majority of companies we work with. However, there are still internal challenges in ensuring compliance and remediation, external challenges on transparency, and also challenges to make the efforts productive to both business and society. 

There is no ‘one size fits all’-approach to embedding human rights within company functions

Internally, companies have started to educate their employees, assess their supply chains and address issues that arise. Externally, companies communicate more openly about human rights issues in their operations. Previously, companies tended to disengage themselves from problems along their supply chain. Active investigation and the acknowledgement of problems are now more common, as is a solution-oriented focus.  

When evaluating the work done so far, there is an important factor that we cannot lose sight of: there is no ‘one size fits all’-approach to embedding human rights within company functions. There are differences between sectors and companies, as well as between branches of a company in different regions, that require careful consideration. Also, especially when we talk about the biggest of the big companies, their size alone makes spreading the message and implementing it across all company layers a lengthy process. 

To make companies put human rights high on their agendas, several balls are currently rolling: an intergovernmental working group is looking into the creation of an internationally binding treaty that will regulate the activities and impact of multinational companies, the EU adopted a directive on non-financial reporting for companies last year, and member states –such as the UK and France- have started to adopt binding legislation to implement the directive at national level.  

“We will take action to promote better working conditions by increasing transparency, promoting identification and prevention of risks and strengthening complaint mechanisms. We recognize the joint responsibility of governments and business to foster sustainable supply chains and encourage best practices.” 

G7 Leaders’ Declaration

Simultaneously, the old habit of name calling, where governments point the finger at enterprises and vice versa, seems to be slowly fading. Instead, a welcome emphasis is being put on the joint responsibility to improve the human rights situation together –as confirmed by the G7 leaders in June.