This Practice Note contains guidance on assessing the risk of your organisation causing or contributing to an adverse human rights impact. Human rights due diligence and risk assessment is not currently a legal requirement in the UK but it is a key part of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights as set out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). It is also good business practice and can help protect an organisation from operational and reputational risks associated with causing or contributing to an adverse human rights impact.

Further, some discrete aspects of the responsibility to respect human rights may be compelled by national law, for example through health and safety and non-discrimination or environmental laws.

The EU Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD) introduces mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence requirements for the largest companies, both within and, in some cases, outside the European Union. Companies in scope of CSDDD will have a number of obligations, including, crucially to:

1. •

   identify and assess actual or