Business & Human Rights

Dutch Bank Adopts BHR Impact Assessments

November 30, 2017

Dutch development bank FMO has announced that, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (BHR), it will perform "human rights impact assessments" to determine whether its investment projects threaten to violate the global BHR agenda and report on its human rights performance in its activities.
Group Files OECD Complaint over Steel Union Treatment

November 30, 2017

Global industrial union group IndustriALL has filed a complaint with the OECD National Contact Point in Luxembourg over the alleged failure by a multinational steel producer to negotiate with one of IndustriALL's member unions and the producer's warning that it would fire employees who failed an alcohol and drug policy.
UN Group Releases Proposed Elements of BHR Treaty

November 30, 2017

The Chairmanship of the UN Working Group charged with negotiating the development of a binding UN treaty on business and human rights (BHR) has published a broad set of proposed elements of such a BHR treaty that places international obligations on signatories to enforce the BHR agenda and provide access to remedies.
NGO Challenges NCP Decision on Asylum Center

November 29, 2017

The nongovernmental organization OECD Watch has filed the first-ever appeal of a decision of a National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to the OECD’s Investment Committee to challenge the Australian NCP's rejection of a complaint against a security company that operated an Australian asylum center.
NGOs Call for Increased Remedy Access in BHR Treaty

November 29, 2017

A group of nongovernmental organizations recently published a letter to the Ecuadorian chair of a UN working group charged with negotiating the development of a binding UN treaty on business and human rights (BHR) pushing for the inclusion in the treaty of, among other things, an effective international oversight body and expanded access to courts for BHR violations.