"Time for the G20 to act on commitments and step up leadership on business and human rights", June 2019

As the G20 countries prepare to convene for their Summit and Ministerial meeting in Osaka, Japan on 28-29 June 2019, the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights (Working Group), calls on them to fulfil their commitments and demonstrate action and leadership to fully implement the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework...When G20 leaders at the summit in 2017 committed to promote sustainable and inclusive supply chains through promoting implementation of the UN Guiding Principles, we welcomed this step...However, as these aspirations were not reflected in the 2018 outcomes, we would like to know how the G20 countries are acting on the promising commitments made in 2017...We wrote to the G20 prior to the 2017 summit, where we set out several recommendations on the steps G20 countries could take to strengthen implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. We think that those recommendations still apply. Moreover, we would like to draw attention to the Working Group’s report to the 2018 UN General Assembly where we addressed the state of play for corporate “human rights due diligence" – a key concept set out by the Guiding Principles (and elaborated on in the 2018 OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct) on how businesses should identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate adverse impacts on people arising in the context of their operations and value chains...