Helping business understand human rights responsibilities
Businesses of all sizes and in all sectors should have appropriate policies and processes to identify, prevent and remediate any adverse human rights impacts they cause, or contribute to, through their activities and relationships. They should also be able to account for human rights performance.
The second pillar of Ruggie’s framework points to the need for appropriate corporate responses to manage the risks of infringing the rights of others by exercising due diligence where human rights impacts can be identified and mitigated. This means companies need to assess the actual and potential human rights impacts. There are many developing toolkits and methodologies for “Human Rights Impacts Assessment” (HRIA) to assist companies to do this. Links to various guidance documents and tools are in the Links on tha page to the left.
The Commission will shortly publish research which takes an overview of HRIA methodologies and draws out some key best practice principles. We want to begin to share these findings, and continue discussions with Scottish business forums to disseminate information and resources on HRIA to Scottish businesses.
The Commission began a dialogue about these issues with Scottish business at a "Business and Human Rights Roundtable” meeting, co-hosted by the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the UK Network of the UN Global Compact which took place at Edinburgh City Chambers on 7 October 2010. This roundtable brought together representatives from business, government, academic and voluntary sectors and explored key emerging developments in business and human rights, both internationally and here in Scotland. The event considered the benefit of increased awareness of human rights for Scottish companies entering emerging markets in high-risk developing countries.
The Commission also recognises that the private sector is diverse and that these HRIA methodologies may be less suited to assist some businesses in their everyday activities. We have been working extensively with private and voluntary providers of social care for older people in Scotland to help them understand their human rights responsibilities and how they can implement a human rights based approach in practice. The Care about Rights training materials have been warmly welcomed by the care and support sector, and you can read more here.
The role of business in promoting 'Climate Justice'
