| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On 16 June 2011, the un human rights council unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that I developed over the course of the previous six years in my role as the Secretary-General's special representative for business and human rights.1 The journey involved nearly fifty international consultations on five continents, numerous site visits to individual firms and local communities, extensive research, and pilot projects to road test key proposals. For the council and its institutional predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, the endorsement was unprecedented. It was the first time that the UN adopted a set of standards on the subject of business and human rights; and it remains the only time the commission or council endorsed a normative text on any subject that governments did not negotiate themselves. Moreover, the uptake of the Guiding Principles (GPs) by other standard-setting bodies, national and international, has been swift and widespread, as has their use as a policy template by companies and business associations as well as an advocacy tool by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and workers' organizations.2
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