Key facts published for businesses to protect human rights

Human Rights at Sea published a facts sheet to help maritime businesses understand their business and human rights requirements. The facts sheet include key questions to be asked at the executive and Board level of every business entity relating to the Respect and Remedy pillars of the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

These Guiding Principles are established to recognize the following:

States’ existing obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights and fundamental freedoms;
The role of business enterprises as specialized organs of society performing specialized functions, required to comply with all applicable laws and to respect human rights;
The need for rights and obligations to be matched to appropriate and effective remedies when breached.

They also apply to all States and business enterprises, both transnational and others, regardless of their size, sector, location, ownership and structure.

Namely, while implementing these principles, businesses need to focus on the following:

Do we understand what the UNGPs are?
Do we have the relevant expertise to advise our senior management team and Board correctly?
Do we have a policy commitment to implementing UNGPs?
Do we have implementing guidelines for the UNGPs?
Do we have a reporting mechanism for the publication of 'lessons identified' and 'lessons learned' which can be shared?
Do we have an implementation policy for the correct use of Human Rights Impacts Assessments (HRIAs)?
Do we integrate HRIAs to our commercial products?
Do have a policy to assess human rights impacts?
Do we have employees trained in human rights?
Do we have a company stakeholder engagement plan?
Do we have an operational level and effective independently reviewed grievance mechanism in place?
Do we have independent and qualified external assessors to undertake periodic reviews and health checks of our UNGP implementation reporting to the senior management team and Board?