U.N. Report Authored by Kennedy School Professor Proposes Framework for Business and Human Rights

April 18, 2008
by Doug Gavel

How to protect and defend human rights in the workplace is a tremendous challenge in a globalized economy. But a new report issued by John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, outlines a framework “to guide all relevant actors” in ongoing debate. Ruggie is the Evron and Jeane Kirkpatrick professor of international affairs and director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. He is also a former assistant secretary general at the U.N.

“History teaches us that markets pose the greatest risks - to society and business itself - when their scope and power far exceed the reach of the institutional underpinnings that allow them to function smoothly and ensure their political sustainability,” Ruggie states in the report’s introduction. “This is such a time and escalating charges of corporate-related human rights abuses are the canary in the coal mine, signalling that all is not well.”

The report aims to encourage the development of responses to those “governance gaps [that] are at the root of the business and human rights predicament,” and calls for a three-pronged framework of “protect, respect, and remedy” in order to assist all three social actors – governments, companies, and civil society – with a stake in the outcome.

“The United Nations is not a centralized command-and-control system that can impose its will on the world,” the report concludes. “But it can and must lead intellectually and by setting expectations and aspirations. The Human Rights Council can make a singular contribution to closing the governance gaps in business and human rights by supporting this framework, inviting its further elaboration, and fostering its uptake by all relevant social actors.”

The report is available on the web: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/8session/A-HRC-8-5.doc

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Photo of John Ruggie

Harvard Kennedy School Professor John Ruggie

The report aims to encourage the development of responses to those “governance gaps [that] are at the root of the business and human rights predicament,” and calls for a three pronged framework of “protect, respect, and remedy” in order to achieve assist all three social actors – governments, companies, and civil society – with a stake in the outcome.