Human rights

The relationships between corruption and human rights are complex but cry out for exploring. Could anti-corruption benefit from a human rights perspective? How can the two communities work better together – and what are some risks and challenges?

This Quick Guide gives a brief introduction to the ideas of the Basel Institute’s Vice-President, Professor Anne Peters, and some of our initial work at the intersection of corruption and human rights.

About this Quick Guide

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.

The International Organisation of Employers (IOE), Business at OECD (BIAC) and BusinessEurope, their member federations and the tens of millions of companies they represent have been deeply engaged in the promotion and implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The tenth anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles this year is an important moment for stocktaking and re-focusing efforts to strengthening their uptake.

The IOE, Business at OECD (BIAC) and BusinessEurope welcome the initiative to draft a roadmap for the better implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. The IOE has supported this project by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights through regional and global consultations, surveys, and research as well as the flagship report “#UNGPsPlus10- Achievements, challenges, and the way forward in the uptake and implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”, which was launched in February 2021.

Based on their strong business and human rights engagement, IOE, Business at OECD (BIAC) and BusinessEurope reiterate that the UN Guiding Principles as the authorative global framework on business and human rights, created clarity of the rules and responsibility of all actors and resulted in much more focused approach in the promotion of business and human rights by particularly companies, but also investors, and international organisations and States.

Human rights are a key concern for business. As the global voice of business, IOE is deeply engaged in the business and human rights agenda and strongly supports the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4 of 16 June 20111. They set out the existing obligations of States to respect, protect and fulfil human rights and fundamental freedoms; the role of business enterprises to comply with all applicable laws and to respect human rights; and the need for rights and obligations to be matched to appropriate and effective remedies when breached.2 The corporate responsibility to respect human rights applies to all business enterprises, regardless of their size, sector, location, ownership, and structure.

The past few years have seen the emergence of several legislative developments related to the business and human rights agenda; most recently, in summer 2021, the German and the Norwegian parliaments adopted a new law on corporate due diligence in the supply chains.

An important focus in the discussions on business and human rights is on mandatory human rights due diligence.

This paper aims to support the meaningful engagement of the business community in these discussions, by clarifying what the UNGPs say on due diligence; setting out the recent legislative and judicial developments; enumerating the expectations and recommendations of stakeholders and the UN; and highlighting the critical points for business to know and consider.

This one-page flyer invites compliance officers and other company representatives to join a series of private-sector roundtables on identifying synergies in anti-corruption and human rights compliance.

Companies invest significant resources in anti-corruption and human rights compliance programmes, often developing them separately within an organisation. We believe there are synergies between these areas that will contribute to the effectiveness and cost efficiencies of both programmes.

Is your company interested in joining a roundtable with other companies to explore this topic? Download the flyer to find out or visit our dedicated Human Rights web page.

This guide is a living document that aims to provide companies with ideas on how synergies between the human rights and corruption agendas could potentially be linked.

Specifically, it aims:

• To compare and analyse the anti-corruption and human rights agendas to help businesses and business/employers’ organizations understand the synergies and differences in standards, policies and approaches.
• To contribute to emerging policy discussions that seek to broaden and deepen company action on anti-corruption and human rights, recognizing that there are linkages between the two fields.
• To support those working on corruption risk and those working on human rights risk in companies with practical tips, strategies and business experiences on how they can learn from each other and join forces where suitable by proposing a number of practical questions for self-assessment.
• To provide users of this guide with an overview of the vast array of resources that exist in the fields of anti-corruption and human rights.