Two Elephants in the Indian CSR Room: time to focus on business impacts and state duties
As the Indian Nobel Laureate for literature, the poet Rabindranath Tagore writes in Stray Birds - “He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.” The new Companies Bill in India fails to heed this lesson. Equally important, it fails to see...
20 August 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Mark Hodge
Governments Must Do More To Tackle Threatening Behaviour Online
The question of how to regulate certain forms of harmful speech in the digital realm without restricting legitimate speech and debate is an on-going controversy that affects every country in the world differently.
What appears to be a global...
02 August 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Lucy Purdon, Founder of Courage Everywhere
Freedom Online, Tunisia: Revolution and Revelations
The third Freedom Online conference held recently in Tunisia’s capital city, Tunis, was dominated not by discussion of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, when the Internet contributed to bringing about regime change and sparked the Arab Spring, but instead...
15 July 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Lucy Purdon, Founder of Courage Everywhere
Society has Evolved regarding Same-Sex Equality, Now It’s Time for Business to Do the Same
Last week, the United States Supreme Court ruled, by a majority of 5-4, that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 was unconstitutional. That law stipulated that the state would recognize a union as “marriage” only if it is between a man and a woman....
04 July 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by John Morrison, Chief Executive, IHRB
Telenor and Ooredoo enter Myanmar
When my colleagues went to Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon in March last year, they found that their smartphones were useless there, since the local telecom operators did not have any arrangement with international carriers. As a result, they...
27 June 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Lucy Purdon, Founder of Courage Everywhere
From Principles to Practice: three new guides support three sectors in respecting human rights
With the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights just passing their second birthday, it is a fitting time for the emergence of more detailed guidance to encourage their implementation.
As a contribution to this objective, last week the...
26 June 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Margaret Wachenfeld, IHRB Senior Research Fellow, Managing Director, Themis Research
Big Data, Big Government, Big Companies: NSA data gathering raises new questions about corporate responsibility
While Microsoft, Google and Twitter publish transparency reports which show the number of worldwide government requests they receive for user information and content takedown and whether and how they comply, they now admit that those reports do not...
12 June 2013 | Commentary
Taking Stock: The business & human rights agenda is gaining ground but needs the UN to lead
Two years have passed since the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed Guiding Principles for implementation of the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy framework on business and human rights – now commonly referred to as the UN Guiding...
10 June 2013 | Commentary
Bangladesh: Society of Fabric
This article was originally published by EthicalCorp.com.
Tragedy in a garment factory has brought new urgency to resolving long-standing failings in a sector crucial to Bangladesh’s economy
The collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, in which more...
03 June 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Salil Tripathi, Senior Advisor, Global Issues, IHRB
Surveilling the Stockholm Internet Forum 2013
Are liberty and security contradictory terms, or can they coexist? Was Benjamin Franklin right when he said, back in 1775: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”? Can...
28 May 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Lucy Purdon, Founder of Courage Everywhere
Taxing Human Rights?
"The governments of developing countries urgently need to increase their tax bases so that public services - key to fulfilling basic rights and tackling poverty - are available for all. The taxes levied on multinational corporations operating in...
01 May 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Rachel Noble
Page 27 of 37 pages.
EU key to further progress on conflict minerals
The ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the deadliest since World War II. Over five million lives have been lost and ongoing violence is currently responsible for an estimated 1,100 rapes per month.
It is widely accepted...
22 August 2013 | Commentary
Commentary by Margot Wallström, Chair, International Advisory Council, IHRB; former Swedish Foreign Minister