Business & Human Rights

UNHRC Requests Guidance for National Institutions on BHR Remedies

July 25, 2018

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has adopted a resolution calling on the UN Working Group on business and human rights (BHR) issues to study how national human rights institutions can facilitate access to remedy for alleged victims of corporate abuses of the BHR agenda.
Academics Call for Global Human Rights Regime for AI

July 25, 2018

Christiaan van Veen of NYU Law and Corinne Cath of Oxford argue that human rights must be a key focus in the development of artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies and businesses engaged in AI must subject themselves to “public and external accountability mechanisms of the international human rights regime.”
NGOs Push Banks to Create BHR Grievance Mechanisms

July 25, 2018

The nongovernmental organizations BankTrack and Oxfam Australia have released global guidelines for banks on how to develop grievance mechanisms to deal with complaints that they are “financing projects that adversely impact vulnerable people” in contravention of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (BHR).
Academic Considers Trade Barriers Based on Labor Rights

July 24, 2018

In an article with potentially broad implications for using human rights concerns to justify import duties, Aleydis Nissen of Cardiff University’s Department of Law examines whether World Trade Organization (WTO) members are permitted to rely on their citizens’ attitudes regarding child labor to impose import restrictions from companies that use such labor.
CoE Publishes Broad Guidelines on Children’s Digital Rights

July 24, 2018

The Council of Europe (CoE) recently published “comprehensive” recommendations for member states on how to protect child rights online, including a call to ensure children are granted access to the internet free of charge and strict guidelines on how businesses must respect children’s privacy in the digital environment.