These Guiding Principles can be utilised to address the responsibility of business to respect human rights and thereby support local communities, workers and other rights holders to ensure fulfilment of their human rights. The guide provides a method for CSOs to use the Guiding Principles in company research and advocacy, and helps them to hold companies accountable for their corporate responsibility to respect internationally recognised human rights.

This guide is the second in a series of guidebooks for CSOs published by SOMO. The first guide addressed to topic of Multi Stakeholder Initiatives (MSI); interactive processes in which business, CSOs and possibly other stakeholder groups interact to make business processes more socially and/or environmentally sustainable.