The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights

The case studies in this publication were initiated during the final year of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR), which completed its work in March 2009 after a period of six years. BLIHR’s aim was to show how international human rights standards as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could be applied in the context of business policy and practice. Although its members were exclusively bus nesses, BLIHR was chaired by Mary Robinson2 for the full period and enjoyed close working relationships with representatives from a range of civil society organizations, trade unions, inter-governmental organizations and states. This brief overview of BLIHR’s key activities provides context to the motivation for writing the case studies in this publication and the spirit in which they were intended.