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Assessing the roles of multi-stakeholder initiatives in advancing the business and human rights agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Abstract

Growing reliance on ‘multi-stakeholder initiatives’ (MSIs) aimed at improving business performance with respect to specific human rights-related challenges has become a significant dimension of the evolving corporate responsibility agenda over recent decades. A number of such initiatives have developed in direct response to calls for greater state and corporate accountability in areas of weak governance and violent conflict. This article examines the evolution of key MSIs in light of the 2011 adoption of the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and addresses challenges facing these initiatives in the future.

Type
The Practice
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2013 

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34 As of November 2012, these include Afghanistan, Albania, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Republic of the Congo, São Tomé and Principe, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Togo, and Trinidad and Tobago. See: http://eiti.org/countries.

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50 See, for example, Naren Karunakaran and Ahona Ghosh, ‘Diamond trade versus human rights’, in Economic Times, 19 June 2012, available at: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-06-19/news/32317729_1_conflict-diamonds-blood-diamonds-kimberley-process-certification-scheme.

52 Kimberley Process, p. 4, available at: www.kimberleyprocess.com/documents/10540/49668/Milovanovic.pdf.

53 UN Human Rights Council, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, UN Doc. A/HRC/17/31, 21 March 2011, available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G11/121/90/PDF/G1112190.pdf?OpenElement.

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56 See UN Human Rights Council, above note 54.

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58 See UN Human Rights Council, above note 53, Principle 30, p. 26.

59 Ibid., Principle 30, Commentary.

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61 See Charter for the Oversight Mechanism for the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers, 2013, available at: http://www.icoc-psp.org/uploads/ICoC_Articles_of_Association.pdf.

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63 See the ISEAL Alliance website at: www.isealalliance.org.

64 See the MSI Integrity website at: http://www.msi-integrity.org/.

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