The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) is an instrument consisting of 31 principles implementing the United Nations' (UN) "Protect, Respect and Remedy" framework on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. Developed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) John Ruggie, these Guiding Principles provided the first global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity, and continue to provide the internationally accepted framework for enhancing standards and practice regarding business and human rights. On June 16, 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, making the framework the first corporate human rights responsibility initiative to be endorsed by the UN.
The UNGPs encompass three pillars outlining how states and businesses should implement the framework: The state duty to protect human rights The corporate responsibility to respect human rights Access to remedy for victims of business-related abuses The UNGPs have received wide support from states, civil society organizations, and even the private sector, this has further solidified their status as the key global foundation for business and human rights. The UNGP are informally known as the "Ruggie Principles" or the "Ruggie Framework" due to their authorship by Ruggie, who conceived them and led the process for their consultation and implementation.
History
The UNGPs came as a result of several decades of UN efforts to create global human rights standards for businesses. In the early 1970s, the United Nations Economic and Social Council requested that the Secretary General create a commission group to study the impact of transnational corporations (TNCs) on development processes and international relations. The UN created the Commission on Transnational Corporations in 1973, with the goal of formulating a corporate code of conduct for TNCs. The Commission’s work continued into the early 1990s, but the group was ultimately unable to ratify an agreeable code due to various disagreements between developed and developing countries. The group was dissolved in 1994. The debate concerning the responsibilities of business in relation to human rights became prominent in the 1990s, as oil, gas, and mining companies expanded into increasingly difficult areas, and as the practice of off-shore production in clothing and footwear drew attention to poor working conditions in global supply chains. Flowing from these concerns two major initiatives were created.
In August 1998, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights established a Working Group on Transnational Corporations. The Working Group similarly attempted to create standards for corporations’ human rights obligations. By 2003 they completed the final draft of the "Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights" (the Norms). While the Norms received support from some NGO’s, such as the Europe-Third World Centre (CETIM) or Amnesty International, the document encountered significant opposition from the business sector, and the Commission on Human Rights ultimately determined in 2004 that the framework had no legal standing.