Greg Regaignon, Research Director of the Resource Centre, said: “The endorsement of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 confirmed that all companies have an internationally-recognised responsibility to respect human rights. These portals we are launching today provide practical materials to help all companies, governments and members of civil society understand the Guiding Principles and how to implement them. Never again should any company be allowed to plead ignorance about human rights.”
Christopher Avery, Resource Centre Director, noted: “For the first time all materials about the Guiding Principles and Working Group are accessible in one place. And for the first time many key materials are available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Until today most materials about these UN initiatives were available only in English – making them inaccessible to businesspeople and civil society in much of the world. That was simply unacceptable – we decided to do something about it.
We encouraged authors to translate their materials and we have translated many of the documents ourselves.”
The “UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights Portal” features:
* introductory information
* guidance materials to help companies and governments implement the Principles
* examples of implementation; examples of failure to implement
* commentaries on the Principles reflecting diverse viewpoints
* lawsuits against companies referring to the Principles
* events related to the Principles
The “UN Working Group on business & human rights Portal” provides:
* links to the Working Group’s reports, statements, initiatives and country visits
* commentaries on the Working Group from all perspectives
* links to all materials about the annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights
Each portal has dedicated landing pages in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. All information on both portals is accessible free of charge. These portals link to, complement and add to the pages on the Guiding Principles and Working Group on the website of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
We designed these portals to make it easier for stakeholders from all sectors to use the Guiding Principles and to engage with the Working Group. We invite users to send us comments and feedback on the portals and the materials they feature, and to send us further materials for each portal. We encourage all those preparing materials about the Guiding Principles or Working Group to consider translating them (in full or in summary) into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
These two new portals and the translations were made possible by grants from the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, supported by GIZ.