Business & human rights

Human rights are increasingly acknowledged to be not just a concern for nation states and international organisations, but also a concern for business. Business organisations operate around the world with increasingly complex structures and supply chains. Their operations can have a number of impacts, good and bad, on human rights. This has led to the development of a number of international initiatives aimed at increasing business awareness of, and respect for, human rights, chiefly the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

As business organisations, law firms have a responsibility to respect human rights as set out in the UNGPs. Implementing the corporate responsibility to respect human rights can however be perceived as difficult to balance with lawyer-client relationships.

This subtopic introduces the key issues law firms need to know about human rights. It summarises some of the key human rights standards and initiatives that apply to business and the key actions that law firms as business organisations need to take in order to avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts and the particular issues that may arise for a law firm