More than a Resource: Water, Business, and Human Rights, a recent report by the Institute for Human Rights and Business (“IHRB”) calls on companies to take action to respect the human right to water.
The report references the emerging consensus among international institutions that businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, and highlights the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,… More
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On September 20, the Obama Administration announced its intent to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative ("EITI"). Government members of the EITI are required to disclose the payments that oil, gas, and mining companies make to them, and companies operating in those countries publish their payments to the governments. The two can then be reconciled for greater transparency and certainty regarding payments to governments.
A working group in each EITI member country –… More
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Last week, I gave the keynote address at an Extraordinary Plenary Meeting of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, held in Ottawa, Ontario on September 15-16, 2011. (Note: I did not deliver my remarks in my capacity as Senior Advisor to Foley Hoag’s CSR practice. As noted previously on this blog, however, Foley Hoag serves as the Secretariat for the Voluntary Principles.) … More
In the Carbon Disclosure Project’s 2011 analysis of the largest 500 companies, the Global 500, there is a very interesting statistical trend — the companies who were the most strategically focused on accelerating low-carbon growth had returns from January 2005 to May 2011 that doubled the Global 500 as a whole, with returns totaling over 85%, compared to the 42.7% returns for the index. Even more amazingly, the 13 companies that had been recognized by CDP for this strong focus for the last 3 years outperformed the Global 500 by over 60 percentage points over the same period. … More
Human trafficking is a problem that is often hidden from sight, especially in the United States. The statistics on human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation are unsettling. Nearly 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. The U.S. Department of State’s 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report estimated that 2,000,000 children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade. ECPAT International,… More
Press Release
September 7, 2011 — John G. Ruggie, the former U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights and current Harvard professor, has joined Foley Hoag LLP’s Corporate Social Responsibility Practice as a senior advisor.
Ruggie authored the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which the U.N. Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed in June after six years of development.… More