Human Rights Due Diligence

Identifying, Assessing, and Addressing Human Rights Impacts
Human rights due diligence helps companies avoid negative human rights impacts, and as such, manage their risks and reputation. A key component of human rights due diligence is meaningful engagement with stakeholders, particularly rights-holders such as employees, community members, supply chain workers, and consumers.

As set out in the UN Guiding Principles, human rights due diligence is a process for identifying, preventing, mitigating, and accounting for human rights impacts. This includes both actual impacts occurring in the present and potential impacts that could occur in the future. A key component of human rights due diligence is meaningful engagement with stakeholders, particularly rights-holders such as employees, community members, supply chain workers, and consumers.

The HRDD process includes four core components: identifying and assessing actual or potential adverse human rights impacts that the company may cause, contribute to, or be directly linked to; taking appropriate action and integrating findings from impact assessments across relevant company processes; tracking the effectiveness of measures in order to assess whether they are working; and communicating with stakeholders about how impacts are being addressed and showing stakeholders that there are adequate policies and processes in place.

Human rights due diligence helps companies avoid negative human rights impacts, and as such, manage their risks and reputation. Companies that do not adequately address their human rights risks may face strong community opposition, which can ultimately cause them to lose foreign investment and/or shut down operations altogether. 

For more information, see the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Human Rights Due Diligence Portal

Pinned Articles

How (not) to do Business and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Case Studies

“How (not) to do Business & Human Rights in Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia” – a collection of 15 case studies from 8 countries in the region (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Poland and Ukraine) is now available...

Report: Status of implementation of UNGPs on Business and Human Rights in Europe & Central AsiaReport:

The progress in implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) is uneven in Europe and Central Asia and challenged by ongoing socioeconomic, humanitarian, and conflict-related crises. The Scoping Study commissioned by UNDP Istanbul...

New research: Responsible business conduct in times of war: Implications for essential goods and services providers in Ukraine

The general recommendations are: ...Companies whose business model includes the provision of essential goods and services initially take on a part of a public, socially significant, function. They should provide enhanced human rights due diligence requires companies,...

Human Rights Impact Assessment Guidance & Toolbox

A useful tool for due diligence, human rights impact assessment analyses the effects that business activities have on rights-holders such workers, local community members, consumers and others. HRIA follows a human rights-based approach, which integrates human rights principles such as non-discrimination into the assessment process.

Towards ‘Sustainability Due Diligence’: Synergies between Environmental and Human Rights Due Diligence

Companies operating today can no longer treat their climate, other environmental and human rights risks in silos: there are too many interconnections between these areas for this approach to work. Rather, what we need is for companies to be empowered, equipped and incentivized to adopt a comprehensive sustainability approach to risks to people and to the planet.

New EU guidance helps companies to combat forced labour in supply chains

The Guidance on due diligence helps EU companies to address the risk of forced labour in their operations and supply chains, in line with international standards. The Guidance will enhance companies’ capacity to eradicate forced labour from their value chains by providing concrete, practical advice on how to identify, prevent, mitigate and address its risk.

Human Rights Due Diligence in High Risk Circumstances

This resource focuses on how to do human rights due diligence in high risk circumstances – and how to identify those circumstances in the first place.

OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct

This due diligence guidance is currently available in English and Ukrainian.

Latest Articles

First CEE&CA Summer Academy on Business and Human Rights

The Call for Applications for the first Central and Eastern Europe & Central Asia Summer Academy on Business and Human Rights (The CEE&CA Summer Academy) is now open! The CEE&CA Summer Academy will take place over five working days between 21-27 September,...

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Human Rights Defenders & Civic Freedoms

Human Rights Defenders & Civic Freedoms

HRDs’ work is essential to the business and human rights movement because of their critical importance for ensuring corporate responsibility and accountability. Yet, attacks on them are growing. This hub brings together news on these advocates and communities -...

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Webinar report: Business conduct in times of war

The Webinar was co-organized by Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University and Polish Institute for Human Rights and Business and supported by the International Visegrad Fund. The event sought input from a range of stakeholders on how to coordinate efforts of companies,...

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