Self-assessment exercise - learning the Guiding Principles
Instructions: From this list, identify 5 principles included in the UN Guiding Principles (GPs) on Business and Human Rights:
1. All businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights.
This core responsibility is spelled out in GPs #11.
2. Businesses should submit reports on their human rights policies to the UN for periodic review by the UN Human Rights Council.
There is no reporting obligation on companies in the GPs. It is hard to imagine how this might work as there are hundreds of thousands of companies.
3. States must protect against human rights abuse within their territory and/or jurisdiction by business enterprises.
This ‘state duty to protect’ is clearly articulated in GPs #1 and further elaborated in GPs #2 and 3.
4. States must ensure through legislation that companies domiciled in their jurisdiction do not engage in human rights abuses when they are operating abroad.
Read GPs #2 carefully. Although states are encouraged to legislate as regards the extra-territorial actions of their companies, the GPs do not require them to do so, noting only that there are “strong policy reasons for doing so”.
5. States should promote respect for human rights by businesses with which they conduct commercial transactions.
This is clearly stated in GPs #6.
6. In order to identify and prevent adverse human rights impacts, businesses should carry out human rights due diligence.
A core duty on business in the GPs, set out in #15(b) and elaborated further in GPs #17.
7. Businesses have special responsibilities to assist in the fulfilment of economic and social rights.
8. Businesses should provide financial and other support to NGOs working to promote human rights.
There is no mention of any such obligation in the GPs.
9. States should deny access to public support and services for a business that is involved with gross human rights abuses and refuses to cooperate in addressing the situation.
This duty clearly set out in GPs #7(c).
10. Individuals alleging that a business has abused his/her human rights must have access to a judicial remedy, and in the business’s home country if he/she chooses.
Although the GPs elaborate access to remedies, these do not include a right for claimants to access the court’s in the company’s home state.