ICC European Roundtable: UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights

ICC European Roundtable:

The UNGPs: After a decade of implementation, what are the challenges for business and policy makers?

16 June 2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the unanimous endorsement by the United Nations Human Righs Council (UNHRC) of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). ICC considers that the UNGPs are a transformational and inspirational roadmap to embedding respect for human rights into corporate supply chains.

To continue its mandate of the UNGPs, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UN BHRWG) has launched the UNGPs 10+ initiative to report on progress made over the past decade and to develop a vision for the future implementation of the UNGPs based on multi-stakeholder inputs. This project is supported by several governments and other partners.

This effort has taken stock of achievements to date (with consultations completed in December 2020), and the next phase will assess existing gaps and challenges, and, most importantly, develop an ambitious vision and roadmap for implementing the UNGPs more widely and more broadly before 2030.

As a global stakeholder and the only business organisation with Permanent Observer Status at the United Nations, ICC has committed to support the initiative, and to provide a private sector perspective from the international business network. ICC contributed comments to the initial stocktake segment of the initiative and is now developing input for next segment assessing opportunities and challenges for the next 10+ years.

On 29 April, 2020, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, announced that the European Union plans to develop (by the end of 2021) a legislative proposal requiring businesses to carry out mandatory due diligence in relation to the potential human rights and environmental impacts of their operations and supply chains. This proposal will complete the EU legislative framework (Conflict Minerals, Timber Regulation, Non-Financial Reporting Directive), which is already one of the most ambitious in the world in the field of Business and Human Rights.

In this context, ICC is delighted to invite European business representatives for a roundtable discussion on how to improve practical implementation of the UNGPs, as well as to discuss approaches for bringing human rights solutions to scale, within the next decade.

For the full agenda and list of speakers, please click here.