Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is contacting governments directly to answer these and other questions on steps they are taking on business and human rights.  The UN Guiding Principles set out States’ duty to protect human rights against abuses by businesses.   This survey takes stock of how governments are currently implementing this duty and encourages them to share examples of implementation. 

Governments’ responses will feed into the first global, publicly available database on government actions on business and human rights, to be released in early 2015.  The responses will be searchable on an interactive platform:  users will be able to compare responses by issue, country, region and other criteria.  The platform aims to support learning between governments, and to create a reference point for dialogue between civil society and governments.

Translated into 15 languages, our global team has sent the survey to more than 100 governments and is following up with each one to ensure their actions are reflected in the database.  We have already received responses from governments in almost all regions, including from Brazil, Denmark, Guinea, Israel, Japan, Spain and Switzerland among others, and commitments to respond from governments in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and other regions.  The database will clearly indicate which governments have and have not responded.

You can find the full list of governments invited to complete the survey here.  Governments not yet invited to respond are also welcome to complete the survey.  The final deadline to respond is 21 November 2014.  To make sure your government’s experience is reflected in the database, share this message with your government representatives or get in touch with us at horvath@business-humanrights.org.

The survey is available online here with links to the full Word copies.