New guide for NGOs on how to apply the new global guidelines on business and human rights were discussed at conferences in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. The Guide and the conferences were supported financially by the Dreyer Foundation.
Under the title “Constructive Campaigning” the guide explains how the NGOs can apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) to ensure that adverse impacts on sustainable development and human rights are avoided. The aim of the guide is not to condemn businesses, but to cooperate in complying with the minimum standards of the UNGPs decided in 2011. The Danish-produced guide is published bu the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Danish Section, with support from the Dreyers Foundation.
At the conference in Copenhagen 30 June, the standards for responsible investments and NGOs were discussed.
Internationally, the guide “Constructive Campaigning” was debated at the “II Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights” in Geneva and “The III International Business and Human Rights Conference” in Amsterdam 10 June this year.
At the Copenhagen conference Poul Hauch Fenger, Director of Human Rights in Action, among other things, said:
“It was exciting to have a houseboat full of NGO and investor representatives to discuss the UNGPs. Insightful discussions that fully revealed the need for “Constructive Campaigning”. There is so much need for guidance and capacity building. The most prominent players were gathered at the launch of these absolutely necessary discussions. A fruitful afternoon.”
Marianne Haahr, Communications and Advocacy Manager at CARE Denmark, said at the conference:
“Dialogue meetings between the business world and NGOs are queuing up at the moment. But often, we speak different languages or completely past each other. The afternoon at Liva was different. The conversation was open, honest and took a common starting point in UNGPs. The direction for future conversations has now been set.”
Read more at the Global CSR’s website here
See the guide here
