The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises

In 2005, the United Nations Human Rights Commission requested that the UN Secretary-General appoint a Special Representative (SRSG) with a mandate for three years to, among other things;

identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for businesses and human rights;
clarify the implications for businesses of concepts such as “complicity” and “sphere of influence”;
develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments of the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises;

After three years of work on his 2005 mandate, the SRSG proposed a conceptual policy framework to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The framework is organized around the three foundational principles of “protect, respect, and remedy”: the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for more effective access to remedies.

The UN Human Rights Council welcomed the SRSG’s work, including the framework, and, on 18 June 2008, renewed his mandate for 3 years to, requesting him among other things to:

elaborate further on the scope and content of the corporate responsibility to respect all human rights and to provide concrete guidance to business and other stakeholders;
identify, exchange and promote best practices and lessons learned on the issue of transnational corporations and other business enterprises, in cooperation with the efforts of the human rights working group of the Global Compact;

For further information about the SRSG mandate and to access all reports and materials produced by or submitted to the mandate please go to the Web portal for the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights.

Relevance for the UN Global Compact

The SRSG’s framework adopted by the UN Human Rights Council is relevant to the UN Global Compact, in particular, the SRSG’s elaboration of corporate responsibility to “ respect” human rights and of “complicity”, which are some of the main concepts in UN Global Compact Principles 1 and 2.

Due Diligence

The work of the SRSG on business and human rights has shown that all human rights have the potential to be relevant to all businesses, regardless of sector or country of operation. It also emphasizes that respecting human rights means not causing harm to human rights. Exercising "due diligence" in identifying and managing human rights risk will help business respect human rights and avoid complicity in human rights abuse.

The responsibility to respect human rights and to thereby not cause harm is the baseline standard for all companies in all situations. Companies should exercise due diligence to become aware of, prevent and address adverse human rights impacts linked to their activities.

The due diligence process should consider three sets of factors: the country contexts in which the companies operates; the potential and actual human rights impacts resulting from the company’s activities; and the relationships connected to those activities. How far or how deep this process must go will depend on the circumstances.

Sphere of Influence

Many participants in the Global Compact are keen to go beyond the avoidance of causing harm to help support/promote the enjoyment of human rights. This is encouraged - Principle 1 of the Global Compact speaks of supporting human rights as well as respecting them. Socially responsible companies will typically also have a broader capability and often desire to support the promotion of human rights within their sphere of influence. Likewise, stakeholder expectations often extend to the belief that companies can and should make a positive contribution to the realization of human rights where they are in a position to do so.

The concept of "sphere of influence" can help map the scope of a company's opportunities to support human rights and make the greatest positive impact. While these opportunities may be greatest with respect to a company's own operations and workers, the ability to act gradually declines as consideration moves outward to the supply chain, to local communities, and beyond. In some cases, companies may wish to increase their leverage or sphere of influence through collaboration with other actors. The assessment of the opportunities for action and leverage will depend on the particular circumstances, some specific to the company and some specific to the context in which it operates.

Contact
Ms. Ursula Wynhoven
wynhoven@un.org

(Last updated 11 December 2008)