Human Rights

Responding to the invitation by the Human Rights Council for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises to submit his views and recommendations for its consideration, this report presents a conceptual and policy framework to anchor the business and human rights debate, and to help guide all relevant actors.

Stressing the relevance of the issue for the private sector, Embedding Human Rights in Business Practice II aims to help establish the business case for human rights and inspire businesses all over the world to raise the level of their human rights performance. As such, the publication represents an important contribution to information and knowledge sharing for companies.

This site is designed to raise awareness of the Voluntary Principles, which have been developed to guide companies in balancing the needs for safety while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. On the site you will find the full text of the Voluntary Principles. You can also learn about the participants from government agencies, private companies, and non-governmental organizations.

This paper examines a collaborative learning program between BHP Billiton and Oxfam Community Aid Abroad (CAA), called the Corporate Community Leadership Program (CCLP). The CCLP was designed to sensitize BHP Billiton managers to a participatory and human rights-based approach to development. Like other companies, BHP Billiton has embedded principles of participatory development into its corporate policy commitments, but has come to recognize the challenges of implementation. In addressing these challenges, BHP Billiton has collaborated with Oxfam CAA in the development of the CCLP, with the aim of increasing management understanding and awareness of participatory development.

This scoping study aims to provide a clearer picture of gender roles, issues and concerns in the artisanal and small mines (ASM) sector in India. This report will provide the necessary backdrop, relevant information and interpretation of their livelihood needs for developing policy measures.

BSR and First Peoples Worldwide (FPW) partnered recently to present a lively, practically focused training on how companies operating in areas inhabited by Indigenous peoples can practice engagement in ways that benefit both companies and communities.

The training focused on gaining a social license to operate, underscoring how companies that do not directly and skillfully address social issues risk losing access to the resources that are fundamental to their businesses. Simultaneously, the training looked at how Indigenous communities are attempting to identify how they might engage with companies to increase their own peoples’ well being, and begin constructive dialogue with companies to foster mutually beneficial relationships.

Since the mid-1990s, Colombia, with support from the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has committed itself to the elimination of child labour through the formulation of national policy on the issue, with various institutions working in the areas of children and labour joining forces to address the problem. This policy has taken shape nationwide on three levels, and an inter-institutional committee has been formed for implementation and follow-up. The ongoing effort has led to significant progress on the issue, especially considering the complexity of the phenomenon and the particular characteristics of the situation in Colombia, which includes such problems as poverty, violence, social disenfranchisement and armed conflict.

The document is intended to provide background on child labour in the small-scale mining and quarrying sectors where nearly 1 million children under 18 years old work. Initially the document provides an overview of small-scale mining, it's economic importance and in particular the role and tasks of child labour. This is followed by an examination of the main issues including: occupational health and safety; impacts on the living environment and social problems; regulatory aspects; poverty; and the neglect of education. Relevant international standards pertaining to child labour and the mining and quarry sectors are identified, and a number of successful projects to eliminate child labour in different countries are discussed.

International labour standards are legal instruments drawn up by the ILO’s constituents (governments, employers and workers) setting out basic principles and rights at work. In today’s globalized economy, international labour standards are an essential component in the international framework for ensuring that the growth of the global economy provides benefits to all.

This report reviews some of the main legal instruments used to date to combat natural resource corruption—as well as new, untested legal remedies that appear promising. Focusing on resource spoliation in Africa, it provides case studies to demonstrate what has and has not worked. The report treats the "home countries" of resource extraction companies separately from the "host countries" where they operate. It looks at both criminal and civil means of redress. Although corruption in transnational resource extraction is generally subject to inadequate legal safeguards, the report identifies opportunities for civil society action.

The manual is suitable as a model for a complete course on mine rehabilitation, or to teach on selected individual units. In order to make it possible for the manual to be used as a stand-alone source document, some material on environmental impacts and environmental management generally has been included. Trainers should add material or modify some sections to suit local circumstances. By providing a structure for the package, in a convenient loose-leaf format, trainers can expand certain themes and develop their own exercises and practical sessions. Very simple overhead slide masters have been included.

Gender Bias in Extractive Industries Improving the Impact of Oil, Gas and Mining (OGM) Projects on Women Many oil, gas and OGM companies are actively involved in working with communities to obtain or improve their social license to operate .This is especially true in Peru where the relationship between companies and communities has not always gone well in recent years.The traditional approach to engaging with communities has typically been to engage with community leaders who, while they may be freely elected or selected by the community, are invariably men so that women have little role in discussions or negotiations.

Why are gender equality issues important in the mining sector?The benefits and risks of extractive industries are often measured broadly at the community level, but fail to distinguish the impact on men and women.Evidence suggests that a gender bias exists in the distribution of risks and benefits in mining projects.The risks fall more heavily on women, while men tend to accrue more of the benefits.The development effectiveness and sustainability of mining projects could increase significantly by taking into account how gender bias issues affect the mining sector and how mining activities can benefit men and women more equally.

This checklist has been developed to provide interested companies with guidance at all stages of the mining life cycle, ensuring that the company's relationship with Aboriginal people in Canada is as productive as possible.

Subject of this report is evaluation of the monitoring project from the perspective of OSI-AF acted as a principle donor, facilitator and coordinator of NGO monitoring groups. The evaluation will go through identification of strength and weaknesses of each project phases. It will also provide recommendations for second stage of NGO monitoring in 2005 to respond to identify weak points, to improve the process and to further promote capacity of local NGOs.

This paper contributes to the thorough review of the Cameroon model of forest resources decentralization. The aim is to question the equitable aspect that underlies all vertical and even horizontal, processes of transfer of forest resources management powers. The main question is whether the continuing process of decentralization in Cameroon has made it possible for marginalized populations, such as the Baka, equitably to obtain generated benefits. Thus, the first section of this paper presents methods and study sites. The second describes our research results. The final section is discussion.

DAC Evaluation Network DAC Evaluation Quality Standards (for test phase application) The attached draft standards were approved by the members of the DAC Network on Development Evaluation at its fourth meeting on 30-31 March 2006 for a test phase application of three years.1 The Standards are intended to: provide standards for the process (conduct) and products (outputs) of evaluations; facilitate the comparison of evaluations across countries (meta-evaluation); facilitate partnerships and collaboration on joint evaluations; better enable member countries to make use of each others’ evaluation findings and reports (including good practice and lessons learned); and streamline evaluation efforts.The term `development intervention’ is used in the Standards as a general term to refer to the subject of the evaluation and may refer to an activity, project, programme, strategy, policy, topic, sector, operational area, institutional performance etc. The Standards recognise that the product of an evaluation may be in a variety of different forms, including oral or written reports, presentation and community workshops.The term `evaluation report’ is used to cover all forms of evaluation products.2.2 Intervention logic and findings The evaluation report briefly describes and assesses the intervention logic and distinguishes between findings at the different levels: inputs, activities, outcomes and impacts.

This is an easy-to-use manual to ILO Convention No. 169. It helps to understand the Convention, and how it can be used to gain recognition, promotion and protection of indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights.

The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights were established in 2000 by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Norway, companies in the extractive and energy sectors, and several non-government organizations to promote human rights and corporate responsibility.

More than two years in the making, this guidebook was drafted with input from a broad range of aboriginal, industry and government sources to encourage sustainable relationships between the mineral sector and First Nations.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, realizes that child labor is a complex problem. In order to respond to the growing need to provide guidance to its staff and clients on this issue and to ensure that its projects are socially responsible, IFC has developed this initial guidance material. This guidance note is intended to raise awareness of the issue among IFC staff and its clients.

This guideline applies to places of work associated with IFC projects. The place of work may be a building, an installation or an outdoor area. The guidelines also apply to temporary places of work. IFC project sponsors should ensure that suppliers, service providers, contractors, and subcontractors are required to follow comparable practices.

This document has been developed in order to provide corporate members with a practical and user-friendly tool on a few key codes, standards and frameworks relevant to the sustainability agenda. Its purpose is to provide general information, a "snap-shot" of the landscape and a perspective from a think-tank/professional association focused on this topic. As these tools continue to evolve, we envision this as primarily a web-based publication that is easy to update.

The tool's objective is to help managers and CSR professionals in companies participating in the UN Global Compact to understand what human rights are and how they are relevant to their business operations, particularly in relation to the two Global Compact principles.

The Human Rights Compliance Assessment is a diagnostic tool designed to promote corporate social responsibility by providing companies with useful information about how to avoid human rights violations in all aspects of their operations.