The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have led to game-changing progress on how to do business with respect for human rights. The Guiding Principles, which were published ten years ago, were unprecedented in their wide endorsement and effect. “This has become a globally accepted framework that everyone can rally behind,” said Lene Wendland, Chief of the UN Human Rights Office’s Business and Human Rights Unit.

Margaret Ghogha Molomo, an environmental activist in South Africa, says that protecting her community from destructive mining companies has been made harder by the assembly restrictions during COVID-19.

Since 2011, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have provided the authoritative global framework to address business-related human rights abuses. Now there is increasing attention on how States, companies and investors can help build and sustain peace in post-conflict contexts by protecting and respecting human rights.

“Sport has given me hope because being an athlete gives you courage,” said Rose Lokonyen. Lokonyen was part of the team of refugees who took part in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. She was speaking at the recent Social Forum on Sports, the Olympic ideal and human rights.

The distance between financial institutions and the human rights impact of the projects they finance may be far in terms of direct contact, but this distance is not insurmountable. This was the opinion of the panel on the role of financial institutions in promoting human rights at the UN Business and Human Rights Forum.

The need to avoid adverse human rights impacts of mega sporting was the focus of a panel discussion during the fourth UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva.

How do you make human rights fashionable? For one South African fashion designer, you do it by having a real stake in the production chain process, from the designers all the way to the weavers of the cloth.