Human Rights Policies and Management Practices of Fortune Global 500 Firms: Results of a Survey

Several elements of the SRSG’s mandate, especially the request to compile a compendium of best practices, require the collection of new or additional information on what firms and governments currently are doing in relation to business and human rights. Accordingly, the SRSG has undertaken a number of research projects, one of which is a questionnaire survey of the Fortune Global 500 companies (FG500). 1 This paper summarizes the key features of the human rights policies and management practices reported by the respondents. The questionnaire and responses – overall, by sector, by region, and the response rate by country – are appended in Tables 1 through 4.

It is often said that human rights, unlike other areas of corporate responsibility, remain somewhat mysterious for business, that corporations don’t fully know what is expected of them. A number of related factors could account for this state of affairs. Apart from workplace issues, human rights until recently were seen as the exclusive domain of states, and no universally agreed framework of international human rights standards yet exists that applies to companies, whether on a voluntary or mandatory basis. Beyond compliance with national laws, therefore, business policies and practices in the area of human rights remain largely voluntary, inevitably leading to differential rates of uptake and levels of performance. Lastly, the expansive claims made by some in the advocacy community for the status and direct reach of international human rights law visà-vis business can create confusion and defensiveness on the part of companies, which may discourage them from experimenting with novel issues and approaches.