"Fifteen years on, the UN Guiding Principles on human rights matter more than ever", 16 June 2026

Fifteen years ago, the United Nations Human Rights Council did something it almost never does: it endorsed a major normative framework unanimously. The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the most authoritative international framework on the human rights responsibilities of businesses, passed without a single dissenting vote. At the time, that consensus felt like an ​arrival. Today it feels more like a call to action.

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Fifteen years later, that consensus looks increasingly fragile. The multilateral order is under severe stress amid geopolitical rivalry and democratic backsliding. Supply chains have grown more complex, more opaque and more contested. And the social license that allowed business leaders to engage with human rights frameworks is squeezed between political polarization and short-term economic pressures.

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And we shouldn’t discount legislative momentum: one of the guiding principles' most tangible legacies. The European ​Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and a growing number of national due diligence laws, are direct descendants of the UNGPs, ​translating corporate performance expectations ⁠into binding obligations.

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