Women’s Rights Still Seen Through the Foggy Lens of Biases, Discrimination, and Injustice

As we mark the 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), it is becoming increasingly clear that in spite of great strides in protecting human dignity, inequalities continue to persist and are deepening more than ever. It...

Seeking Safety, Seeking Opportunity, Seeking Rights - Reflections on the Migrant Caravan in Mexico

On this International Migrants Day 2018, let’s take a moment to consider the struggles of the thousands of men, women and children who in recent months joined the so-called migrant caravan hoping for a better life in North America. 

Violence,...

The Governance Legacy of Mega-Sporting Events: A Golden Opportunity to Promote Human Rights

Human rights’ next of kin is the global anti-corruption movement. These two efforts increasingly work in tandem, creating the conditions in which humans flourish. Their synergy has at least two explanations. Most obviously, we know that corruption...

Channelling Sir Geoffrey Chandler on the History and Future of Business and Human Rights

I write from Tokyo this week where I am honouring a longstanding commitment to address business and human rights issues. But there is nowhere in the world I would rather be today - professionally or personally - than with you at the Bonavero...

Rights and Wrongs: Best Or Loudest?

Last week, Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, visited India. He met a few leading women activists and journalists who use the social media platform extensively, in order to understand better how they felt about the space his company...

Rights and Wrongs - Tech Inequity?

On 1st November 2018, some 17,000 Google employees in more than 40 offices across the world left identical notes on their desks, saying “I’m not at my desk because I’m walking out with other Googlers and contractors to protest sexual harassment,...

Rights and Wrongs - Business as Usual in Saudi?

One by one, global companies are trying to distance themselves from the Saudi Arabian Government.

The immediate provocation is the shocking disappearance and murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. On October 2, Khashoggi went to the Saudi...

What the OHCHR’s Accountability & Remedy Project Adds to the Treaty Discussions

In June 2014, the Human Rights Council raised some eyebrows by creating not just one, but two parallel processes on corporate accountability in human rights-related cases.  The first process, set out in Resolution 26/9 called for the establishment...

Increasing Access to Business Practice is Key to Scaling Respect for Human Rights

Finding effective ways to talk about human rights with colleagues is a common challenge confronted by practitioners working in companies to drive implementation of respect for human rights. 

Whether these discussions happen within one’s immediate...

Do It Just: Has Nike Started a New Trend?

“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” 

These words, embossed over a close-up photograph of Colin Kaepernick, have already created debate over what many consider a controversial choice by sports company Nike to feature the...

Children’s Rights and Business – Stuck in the “Too Difficult” Box?

Businesses impact on the lives of children in a variety of direct and indirect ways.

Children are consumers of products and services, they are dependents of workers, and they might be young workers themselves or, at least, will be future workers...

2018 TIP Report: Despite Shortcomings, An Opportunity for Continued Advocacy in Southeast Asia

The United States Department of State released its 2018 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report on 28^th June, ranking 187 countries on their performance in preventing and addressing trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation.

The report was first...