{"id":437,"date":"2019-04-16T14:13:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T12:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/?p=437"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:13:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T12:13:40","slug":"business-and-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/business-and-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
  1. Introduction<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The UN Human Rights Council with its\nResolution No. 17\/4 of 16 June 2011 adopted the Guiding Principles of Business\nand Human Rights: implementation of “Protecting, Respecting, Remedy”\nthe United Nations Framework (hereafter: the Guiding Principles). The Guiding Principles\nare the result of the multi-annual work of the Special Representative of the UN\nSecretary General for Human Rights, Transnational Corporations, and\nEnterprises. It consists of three sections. The first section refers to the State duty to protect human rights<\/em>, the\nsecond to the Corporate responsibility to\nrespect the human rights<\/em>, while the third section is related to the Judicial and extrajudicial legal protection\nof human rights<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the first part of the text devoted to this topic, we are addressing the issue of the State duty to protect human rights, while in the second part we will address the issue of the responsibility of business enterprises and corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2.The State duty to protect human rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States have an obligation to enable\nhuman rights protection by third parties, including business enterprises and\ncorporations. This understands undertaking appropriate steps to prevent,\ninvestigate, punish and finally compensate any damage. States are obliged to\nprotect and enhance the rule of law, to ensure equality of citizens, legal\ncertainty and clear procedural laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In addition, States should clearly set\nthe expectation that all business enterprises domiciled in their territory respect\nhuman rights throughout their operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In meeting their duty to protect\nhuman rights, States should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    a) Enforce laws aimed at or have the effect of\nrequiring business enterprises to respect human rights;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    b) Ensure that other laws and\npolicies governing the creation and ongoing operation of business enterprises,\ndo not constrain but enable respect of human rights;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    c) Provide effective guidance to\nbusiness enterprises on how to respect human rights throughout their\noperations;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    d) Encourage, and where appropriate\nto require business enterprises to communicate how they address the negative\nimpact on human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States should undertake further\nsteps to protect individuals from violation of their human rights by\nstate-owned or state-controlled business enterprises or business enterprises that\nreceive significant support from state agencies (eg export credit agencies or\ninsurance and\/or a guarantee of investments), including imposing an obligation\nto respect the principle of due care and care for the rights of the individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States should conduct adequate supervision\nin order to fulfil international obligations in the field of human rights when\nconcluding contracts with business enterprises or adopting laws on their\nprovision of services that may affect human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In addition, States should promote\nrespect of human rights by business enterprises with which they have business\ntransactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Given the more\nconsiderable risk of serious human rights violations in areas affected by conflicts,\nStates should assist business enterprises operating in these areas not to take\npart in the commission of such violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States should ensure that state\nbodies, agencies and other state institutions are introduced with the\nobligations of States in relation to human rights and respect it when they exercise\ntheir mandates, including the provision of relevant information, training and\nsupport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States should maintain adequate\ndomestic policy space to meet their human rights obligations when pursuing\nbusiness-related policy objectives with other States or business enterprises (such\nas bilateral investment treaties, free trade agreements, investment contracts,\netc.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States, when acting as members of\nmultilateral institutions that deal with business-related issues, should: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    a) Seek to ensure that those institutions do not\nrestrain the ability of their member States to carry out their duty to protect\nhuman rights;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    b) Encourage those institutions to\npromote business respect for human rights and where requested, to assist States\nto comply with their duty to protect against human rights abuse by business\nenterprises, including through technical assistance, capacity building and\nawareness-raising;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    c) Draw on these Guiding Principles to promote shared understanding and advance international cooperation in the management of business and human rights challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3.Protection of rights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the framework of their duty to\nprovide protection against human rights violations by business enterprises, States\nshould take appropriate steps within their territory and\/or jurisdiction, with\nthe assistance of judicial, administrative, legislative and other appropriate mechanisms,\nto ensure the access to effective \nmechanisms of legal protection to those whose rights are threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    States should take appropriate steps\nto ensure the effectiveness of domestic judicial mechanisms for reviewing human\nrights violations committed by business enterprises and at the same time should\nconsider ways to reduce legal, practical and other relevant barriers that could\nlead to the denial of access to legal protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In parallel with judicial remedy\nmechanisms, States should provide effective and appropriate non-judicial\nmechanisms as part of a State-based system for the remedy of human rights abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In addition, States should consider ways to facilitate access to effective non-State based remedy mechanisms dealing with business-related human rights abuse. In order to consider appeals at an early stage and immediate redress, business enterprises need to establish or participate in effective remedy mechanisms at the operational level focused on individuals and communities that may be negatively affected. \u00a0All multi-stakeholder initiatives, which are based on respect for human rights standards, should ensure the availability of effective complaint mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Author: Aleksandar Sajic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    E-mail: aleksandar@afsajic.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Introduction The UN Human Rights Council with its Resolution No. 17\/4 of 16 June 2011 adopted the Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advokatskafirmasajic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}