The Rehab Archipelago - Human Rights Watch

“Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” for their implementation,
which the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed, businesses should
respect all human rights, avoid complicity in abuses, and adequately remedy
them if they occur. 102 Elsewhere, Ruggie has explicitly noted that “[t]he corporate
responsibility to respect human rights … applies across an enterprise’s activities
and through its relationships with other parties, such as business partners,
entities in its value chain, other non-state actors and state agents.” 103
The UN Framework and Guiding Principles outline basic steps that businesses
should adopt consistent with their human rights responsibilities. This includes
undertaking adequate due diligence that encompasses risk assessments and
monitoring, in order to identify and prevent or effectively mitigate human rights
problems. 104 Properly conducted due-diligence reviews have clear relevance to
ensuring that a company is not implicated in forced labor and other abuses
through its supplier relationships. As described by Ruggie, “not knowing about
abuses [in the supply chain] is not a sufficient response by itself to allegations of
either legal or non-legal complicity if the enterprise should reasonably have
known about them through due diligence.” 105
102 See United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), Resolution 8/7, “Mandate of the Special Representative of
the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business
enterprises,” June 18, 2008; and HRC, Resolution A/HRC/17/L.17/Rev.1, “Human rights and transnational
corporations and other business enterprises,” June 16,2011.
103 Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations
and other business enterprises, “The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights in Supply Chains,”
Discussion Paper for the 10th OECD Roundtable on Corporate Responsibility, June 30, 2010,
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/50/45535896.pdf.
104 Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations
and other business enterprises, “Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights,”
UN document A/HRC/8/5, April 7, 2008; and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of
human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, “Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework," UN document
A/HRC/17/31, March 21, 2011.
105 Emphasis removed from the original. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human
rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, “The Corporate Responsibility to Respect
Human Rights in Supply Chains,” Discussion Paper for the 10th OECD Roundtable on Corporate Responsibility,
June 30, 2010, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/50/45535896.pdf (accessed August 24, 2011).
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