January 2009, Aim for Human Rights
Globalisation has increased the need for Corporate Social Responsibility. The motives companies may have for using Human Rights Impact Assessments are manifold. While governments have a duty to respect human rights, a company has a responsibility to ensure respect for human rights within the workplace and towards the surrounding community. How do we know whether a company lives up to this expectation? This is something both the company itself and its stakeholders would like to find out.
Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs) are an important strategy for companies to accomplish this due diligence, and for stakeholders to monitor a company's performance. This Guide to HRIA Tools aims to assist business managers of (multinational) corporations and their stakeholders to find their way in the world of Human Rights Impact Assessments. It helps to select the best tools (s) to assure the best HRIA process for the project.
The first chapter introduces the theory and history of the HRIAs. The second chapter gives a summary of all the HRIA tools that have been developed to assess the impact of business on human rights. The third chapter maps these HRIA initiatives in order to facilitate the selection of an HRIA tool, while chapter foud provides an overview of when and how these tools can best be used.
