Businesses must protect human rights: UN

Around 1,000 people gathered in Geneva Tuesday for a UN conference on how to get companies to make respect for human rights a natural part of their business practices.

“Responsible business means acting with respect for human rights,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the gathering.

The two-day UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, gathered participants from 85 countries, 170 civil society groups and 150 businesses — including giants like Coca Cola, Microsoft and Ikea — to discuss the sticky issue of companies’ responsibility to protect human rights.

The discussions, which will wrap up Wednesday, will not lead to any binding decisions, but are aimed at pushing countries and companies to implement a UN list of “guiding principles” introduced last year.

In a world where some corporations have more clout than many countries, it is increasingly important that they support human rights, speakers said.

Governments both in the countries where companies are headquartered, as well as in the ones where they have their activities, must ensure business activities do not lead to rights abuses, said John Ruggie, who chaired the conference.

Debbie Stothard, the deputy head of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), pointed out that in many developing countries people face violence and even death if they oppose lucrative business operations like mining and drilling projects.

Without naming the countries or companies involved, she cited several “very extreme cases where … people were shot down in broad daylight simply because they were working to address serious human rights violations linked to business activities.”

“We have moved from a situation where people saw human rights violations coming from men with guns to human rights violations coming from men with briefcases,” she told reporters.

US Assistant Secretary of State on Human Rights and Labour Michael Posner meanwhile stressed the need for clear “rules of the road” to help companies figure out how to act responsibly in terms of human rights.

He pointed out that when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 all the focus was on states’ responsibilities.

“Sixty-four years later the world looks very different. One of the differences is the enormous growth of private companies, multinational companies and others,” he told reporters.