Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) provide the authoritative global framework for preventing and addressing human rights abuses linked to business activity. They rest on three pillars:

1. State duty to protect – Governments must prevent, investigate, and redress business-related abuses through laws, regulation, and adjudication, including ensuring state-owned enterprises and public procurement respect human rights.
2. Corporate responsibility to respect – Businesses must avoid causing or contributing to harm, conduct human rights due diligence across their operations and value chains, and remediate adverse impacts.
3. Access to remedy – Both states and companies must ensure affected individuals and communities can seek redress through judicial, administrative, or operational-level grievance mechanisms.

The principles emphasise that respecting human rights is a global baseline expectation for all companies, independent of state action, and require due diligence, transparency, and accountability. They also highlight the heightened risks in conflict zones, the need to prioritise severe impacts, and the importance of meaningful engagement with vulnerable groups, Indigenous peoples, and workers.

Overall, the framework is not new law but a practical guide aligning states’ legal obligations, business responsibilities, and the right of victims to effective remedy, with the aim of embedding human rights in global business practice.