Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are a set of guidelines for States and companies to prevent, address and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations. child labour
Many global businesses are run with consideration for the well-being of the people whose lives they touch. But others—whether through incompetence or by design— seriously harm the communities around them, their workers, and even the governments under which they work. Much of the problem lies with companies themselves—even those that think of themselves as ethical. Too many still deal with human rights problems on the fly, without forethought and often in a de facto regulatory vacuum that they lobby vigorously to maintain. In many parts of the world, company human rights practices are shaped by self-created policies, voluntary initiatives, and unenforceable “commitments”—not by binding laws and regulations. History’s long and growing catalogue of corporate human rights disasters shows how badly companies can go astray without proper regulation. Yet many companies fight to keep themselves free of oversight, as though it were an existential threat.
By Chris Albin-Lackey
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are a set of guidelines for States and companies to prevent, address and remedy human rights abuses committed in business operations. child labour
Among countless severe consequences, the current international COVID-19 emergency has created a global financial crisis of a scale rarely encountered in modern history. Systemic economic and social inequalities across societies are being laid bare a...Read More
The 2016 ITUC Global Rights Index shows workers’ rights were weakened in almost all regions of the world, including through severe crackdowns on the right to free speech and assembly. Part I of this publication provides a more detailed analysi...Read More
The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019 and is accurate as of July 30, 2020. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may revealed to the National Hotline over time. Consequen...Read More
Advances in technology and the COVID-19 crisis have made millions more people vulnerable to trafficking, says UNODC Traffickers have integrated technology into their business models at every stage of the process, from recruiting to exploiting vic...Read More