Business & Human Rights

NGOs Seek Comprehensive EU Action on BHR Agenda

May 12, 2016

A group of NGOs has called on members of the EU Foreign Affairs Council to seek to "address gaps" in the EU's implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by imposing strict due diligence requirements on companies, offering more effective remedies to alleged BHR victims, and cooperating in the development of a binding BHR treaty.
NGO Publication Pushes Corporate Taxation for Realization of Rights

May 12, 2016

Righting Finance has published an advocacy tool seeking to promote assertions from a report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights that countries must provide "maximum available resources" to the realization of economic, social, and cultural human rights and therefore must clamp down on any attempts by corporations to avoid tax obligations.
UN Initiative Pushes Companies on Emissions Targets

May 11, 2016

The UN Global Compact has announced that over 150 companies around the world have signed on to its Science Based Targets Initiative and thus have subjected themselves to review of their targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by UN and NGO representatives.
UN Women's Rights Body Considers Swiss Financial Policies

May 11, 2016

A coalition of NGOs has successfully petitioned the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to seek information from the Government of Switzerland, as part of its review of the country, on the impacts of the government's financial disclosure policies on the realization of the rights of women in foreign countries.
US Court Dismisses India Pollution Case Against IFC

May 11, 2016

An article on the website Economy Watch describes a recent case, in a line of lawsuits seeking to hold businesses and financial institutions liable for human rights harms in US courts, in which a judge held that the International Finance Corporation was immune from a lawsuit by Indian nationals who claimed that an IFC-funded power plant project harmed their health and livelihoods.