28 November, 2010The United Nations publishes draft guiding principles on taking practical steps to address business impacts on the human rights of individuals for consultation before the end of January 2011.
GLOBAL: The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, posted on November 22 the draft "Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the UN 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework" on his online consultation forum, http://www.srsgconsultation.org/
The forum, intended to gather views from a broad range of stakeholders, will remain open until January 31, 2011.
The Guiding Principles elaborate and clarify for companies, states, and other stakeholders how they can operationalize the UN 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework, by taking practical steps to address business impacts on the human rights of individuals. The UN Human Rights Council had endorsed the Framework unanimously in 2008, and asked Ruggie to provide this additional concrete guidance.
The International Metalworkers' Federation welcomes and supports the content of Ruggie's proposals. "These are very helpful to clarify responsibilities along the chain of suppliers and the nature of business responsibilities on fundamental rights at work as a matter of unquestionable human rights, not as a voluntary exercise of good will," said IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina.
The IMF has been closely following this process, including making an earlier submission to Ruggie on how employers are using various forms of precarious employment expressly to prevent workers from joining a trade union and bargaining collectively and will continue to work with others in developing its response to these Guiding Principles in this latest round of consultation.
Anybody can access the forum to read the Guiding Principles. In order to post and rate comments, it is necessary to register. Recognizing that there are legitimate reasons why some cannot comment publicly, private correspondence can be submitted to: [email protected]
After the forum closes in January, Ruggie will submit the final text of the Guiding Principles to the UN for translation, before presenting it formally to the Human Rights Council at its June session.