London - 30 July 2009 - Today the non-profit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre launched the world's only online portal for all materials relating to the work of the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative on business & human rights, Professor John Ruggie.

The portal is at www.business-humanrights.org/SpecialRepPortal and can also be reached via the Resource Centre homepage. This free portal includes all the Special Representative's reports, papers and speeches; material on his consultations with stakeholders; and diverse commentaries about his work.

Professor Ruggie commented:

"This portal is an indispensable tool that enables real-time exchange of information and dialogue to take place between the mandate and stakeholders all over the world. It constitutes our own version of an ongoing global town-hall meeting, where everyone can be heard and participate in the strengthening of the international human rights regime as it relates to business."

Christopher Avery, Resource Centre director, said:

"In our work tracking companies globally, we see positive steps by business, but also continuing human rights abuses by companies, sometimes grave abuses. In this context, the UN's work on business and human rights is critical. This portal aims to make the UN Special Representative's work easily accessible to a global audience. The more people following Professor Ruggie's work and contributing their input, the better."

Key features of the new portal include:

• Introduction to the Special Representative's work
  
• "Latest news"
  
• The Special Representative's reports to the UN Human Rights Council (in various languages)
  
• Topic-specific links to the Special Representative's materials - such as:
  • company policies
    
  • conflict zones
    
  • complicity
    
  • export credit agencies
    
  • grievance mechanisms
    
  • impact assessments
    
  • national human rights institutions
  
  
• Complete list of documents prepared by the Special Representative
  
• Submissions to the Special Representative
  
• Commentaries

This is the second portal on the Centre’s website. The Corporate Legal Accountability Portal, launched last year, demystifies lawsuits from across the world alleging human rights abuses by companies.

The new UN Special Representative portal is made possible by a grant from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

This portal and the entire Resource Centre website were engineered by Jamkit, specialists in web solutions for the not-for-profit sector. Jamkit is part of the Blue Fountain Systems group of companies.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (www.business-humanrights.org) tracks the human rights impacts (positive & negative) of 4500 companies in over 180 countries. Issues include discrimination, labour rights, security & conflict zones, killings, torture, displacement, environmental abuses affecting human health, access to medicines, poverty and development. The site is updated hourly and receives 1.5 million hits per month.

Mary Robinson chairs our 80-member International Advisory Network. Our 20 Academic Partners include leading institutes in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

For further information about the Resource Centre, see the "About us" section of our site.

SUPPORT THE RESOURCE CENTRE: Please consider making an online donation to help us continue to provide these resources for free.

If you have questions about the portal or the Resource Centre, please contact:

London
Christopher Avery, Director
+44 20 7636 7774

New York
Annabel Short, Head of Program
+1 212 564 9160

California
Greg Regaignon, Head of Research
+1 909 626 0260

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

The Resource Centre is an independent non-profit that promotes greater awareness and informed debate about human rights issues relating to business. Our website is updated hourly with news and reports about companies’ social and environmental impacts worldwide, including alleged abuses, positive steps, and company responses to concerns raised about their conduct. The site has sections on over 4000 companies. It also includes special resources such as all materials issued by the UN Special Representative on business & human rights; a list of companies with human rights policies; profiles of lawsuits against companies. Mary Robinson is Chair of our International Advisory Network. Visit the website for further details and to sign up for free Weekly Updates. See website for contact details of our New York office and team members in Hong Kong, India, South Africa, UK, Ukraine, USA

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