The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) mandated IHRB to work with stakeholders to develop guidance for the commodities trading sector on implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGPs). 

The Guidance was officially launched at the 2018 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. It is intended to help representatives of commodity trading firms to implement the UNGPs in their company systems and cultures. The guidance is available online at www.commodity-trading.org providing a step-by-step guide to UNGPs implementation. In 2023 the website was updated with the latest developments in legislation and business and human rights thinking, provides a step-by-step guide for commodity traders on implementing HRDD.

IHRB has also produced a series of explainers downloadable as PDFs, which spotlight elements of the guidance.

Latest IHRB Publications

How should businesses respond to an age of conflict and uncertainty?

As 2024 began, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen aptly summed up our deeply worrying collective moment. As she put it, speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, we are moving through “an era of conflict and...

Bulldozer Injustice: how a company’s product is being used to violate rights in India

Bulldozers have been linked to human rights violations for many years, at least since 2003 when the US activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer while protesting against the demolition of a Palestinian home with a family...

The state of just transitions in the cocoa sector

The mounting impacts of the climate crisis are seen starkly in the lives of agricultural workers, most often in developing countries. Discussions around just transitions understandably focus on energy, but agriculture and deforestation are also huge...

{/exp:channel:entries}