UN FORUM SERIES – the measure of … things: measurement first principles and the business and human rights assessment project (original) (raw)
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2017
This study reviews the progress of the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in non-EU countries, five years after their unanimous adoption by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2011. Much progress has already been achieved,with relevant key international standardslike the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises becoming aligned with the UNGPs, new tools being developed to provide guidance to governments and stakeholders and a basis being set for constructive discussion. This led to increased awareness and better understanding, building trust and engagement among various stakeholders. Yet, despite all efforts, business-related human rights abuse is still a serious problem. Further implementation of the UNGPs and related instruments is thus necessary, with special emphasis needed on access to remedy and justice for victims of business-related abuses. Less declaration and more real political will is needed, as states’ commitment...
2014
Framing is critical [to winning a public debate) because a frame, once established in the mind of the reader (or listener, viewer, etc.) leads that person almost inevitably to the conclusion desired by the framer, and it blocks consideration of other possible facts and interpretations.'-Framing expert, George Lakoff There is a critical question that is too frequently obscured in discussions of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (CPs): Why precisely is it that the most vocal and consistent critics of the CPs are human rights organizati0ns, precisely the groups that have been pushing the longest and hardest for a more effective, non-business-as-usual approach to corporate human rights abuse? Indeed, whether big or small, North-or South-based, international or local in orientation, or highly or loosely networked, human rights NCOs have consistently taken a critical posture toward the CPs. Although their openness to CP engagement has v3;r-ied, • each has tended to see the CP framework as "regressive," a "step backward" in the protection of human rights, 3 one based on a corporate good will model that not only has proven itself ineffective over decades of trial and creative experimentation, 4 but, that-most revealingly and consequentially-ignores the critical elements of a human rights approach to social change. Indeed, in order to render the CPs 1 George Lakoff, George Lakoff Manifesto 2, www.infoamerica.org/teori a_textos/manifiestoJakoff.p df; see also: George Lakoff, The All New Don't Think of an Elephant/ Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (2014). • Groups that do not take a human rights approach to community-based problem-solving as the primary emphasis of their work have. been more open to engaging the GPs. In this respect, I am highly sympathetic to the framing used in Chris Jochnick's contribution to this volume, while believing that it may oversuggest differences in the substance of the critical postures taken by human rights NGOs (as a category) toward the GPs. See infra, note 5• 3 See, e.g., FIDH et al., "Joint Civil Society Statement on the Draft Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights" (3 March 2011); Christopher Albin-Lackey, Human Rights Watch, "Without Rules: A Failed Approach to Corporate Accountability," in Human Rights Watch: 2013 World-Report (2013) (recognizing GPs as "woefully inadequate" by "setting a lower bar than international human rights standards"). 4 Indeed, international efforts at corporate voluntarism in the human rights field have been vigorously pursued at the highest levels since the 196os.
Rights incorporated : integrating human rights impact assessment into global business practices
2014
Background: In 2011, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed a protocol dictating the role of multinational corporations towards human rights. What resulted, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, set forth a framework for corporations to proactively “respect” human rights. The responsibility to respect was reasoned to include: (i) policy statements; (ii) the conduct of “human rights due diligence,” to know and demonstrate that companies understand and manage their human rights impacts; and (iii) processes for hearing and addressing human rights-related grievances from affected people. This framework was embraced by the business, government and civil society communities, but it did not include detailed guidance on how it could be implemented. Objectives: Four specific objectives were pursued in this PhD thesis: (i) to develop and advance tools and methods for human rights due diligence and, specifically, human rights impact assessment (HRIA...
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This paper demonstrates why human rights measurement is important, how human rights have been measured to date, and how such measures can be improved in the future. Through focusing primarily but not exclusively on the measurement of civil and political rights, the paper argues that human rights can be measured in principle, in practice, and as outcomes of government policy. Such measures include the coding of formal legal documents, events-based, standards-based, and survey-based data, as well as aggregate indicators that serve as indirect measures of rights protection. The paper concludes by stressing the need for continued provision of high quality information at the lowest level of aggregation, sharing information and developing an ethos of replication, and long term investment in data collection efforts.
University of Oxford Human Rights Hub Journal, 2019
The concept of ‘adverse human rights impacts’ introduced by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is frequently used in institutional, activist and scholarly discourse. However, the term is under-explored and usually equated with ‘human rights violation’, occluding its transformative potential. This article demonstrates its expansiveness and rationale: ‘impacts’ cover any business act which removes or reduces an individual’s enjoyment of human rights. The formula is designed to capture business acts that are not paradigmatically understood as human rights violations but that nonetheless cause harmful outcomes. This can encompass, inter alia, acts which reduce market access to essential goods, harm caused by business-related tax abuse, and business contributions to climate change. The extra-legal concept provides an authoritative argumentative framework through which social understandings of business-related harm can evolve and can underlie a transformative shift in the business-society relationship.