Resource Center

Five years after the unanimous endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by the UN Human Rights Council, companies and their stakeholders have a clear global standard on the expectation  that  business will respect human rights. This guidance is more than a theoretical explanation of what the Guiding Principles say; it is based on real experiences of companies, and  their stakeholders, in diverse  and complex situations. Those situations range from pulp milling in Indonesia to alternative energy projects in Mexico, an from banking in SouthAfrica to clothingmanufacturing in Turkey. From 2014–16, inclose collaboration with Oxfam affiliates and Global Compact local networks in each of these four countries, we explored what respecting human rights means on the ground in highly different contexts. This guidance is for company staff who want to understand what “doing business with respect for human rights” means. It is for anyone who faces – or could face – scenarios in which their function, department or company could be connected to harm to people, or what this guidance calls “negative impacts on human rights”. This includes staff well beyond the sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) function; it could include staff in corporate functions like procurement, sales, legal, public affairs or risk, and in different areas of operations, including business units and country subsidiaries.