No employer wants to be branded a human rights abuser. Yet increasingly companies are accused of violating human rights even in situations where their activities are in compliance with applicable law or were consistent with the manner in which they have historically conducted business. Human rights as they relate to business are here to stay, and every multinational enterprise will eventually have to address them. It is just a matter of when – and under what circumstances – that will happen. It is therefore critical that an employer understand the risks that human rights issues present to the enterprise, and the need for a careful and circumspect approach to them.

In June of 2011, to much fanfare, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted U.N. Special Representative Professor John Ruggie’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This instrument is the most significant development in recent years regarding global efforts to standardize corporate social responsibility practices. The U.N. Guiding Principles do not define human rights – they leave that to other international instruments including the International Bill of Human Rights (consisting of a number of other documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and the International Labour Organizations’ (ILO) 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Instead, they establish a framework within which governments protect, businesses respect and both governments and business remedy human rights in the ultimate quest to “do no harm.” Although subject to some criticism, principally among advocacy organizations that believe the framework does not go far enough, these Guiding Principles have taken center stage in many recent forums and discussions on corporate social responsibility.