The UN Human Rights Norms for Business

This paper intends to provide an introduction to the UN Human Rights Norms for Business, summarising the content of the Norms, the reasons for their development, their possible implications and the debate surrounding them.

The paper argues that the UN Norms differ from other frameworks for corporate social responsibility because they go beyond simply addressing the immediate impacts of business practice and they consider indirect impacts, for example the human rights implications of business practice. This is shown in three main ways:

• they raise the issue of the impacts of business on governance through, for example, addressing bribery and corruption
• they consider that it is the obligation of business to ensure that their activities do not lead to adverse human rights implications for those whose rights they are trying to protect; and, therefore, the Norms are different from codes that, for example, require the abolishment of child workers as an end in itself
• they address issues of product responsibility and obligations to consumers.

The Norms offer an authoritative and comprehensive statement of the responsibilities of companies in relation to human rights, which provide clarity and credibility amidst many competing voluntary codes that too often lack international legitimacy and provide far less detail on human rights issues. [adapted from author]