Today the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, posted the draft "Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the UN 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework" on his online consultation forum, http://www.srsgconsultation.org. The forum, intended to gather views from a broad range of stakeholders, will remain open until 31 January 2011.

The Guiding Principles elaborate and clarify for companies, states, and other stakeholders how they can operationalize the UN 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework, by taking practical steps to address business impacts on the human rights of individuals. The UN Human Rights Council had endorsed the Framework unanimously in 2008, and asked Ruggie to provide this additional concrete guidance.

"I hope that stakeholders in every region will take advantage of this opportunity to be heard before I finalize the text of the Guiding Principles," said Ruggie. "The online forum is a critical complement to the more than 40 in-person consultations I've conducted around the world since my mandate began in 2005."

After the forum closes in January, Ruggie will submit the final text of the Guiding Principles to the UN for translation, before presenting it formally to the Human Rights Council at its June session.

About the Forum
Anybody can access the forum to read the Guiding Principles. In order to post and rate comments, it is necessary to register. Recognizing that there are legitimate reasons why some cannot comment publicly, private correspondence can be submitted to moderator[at]srsgconsultation.org. Interested parties can follow developments on the forum via Twitter, @srsgforum. Technical issues with the site should also be referred to admin[at]srsgconsultation.org.

For more information about the Special Representative's mandate, please visit his web portal, which is hosted by the independent Business & Human Rights Resource Centre: http://www.business-humanrights.org/SpecialRepPortal/Home.

Background
John Ruggie, Berthold Beitz Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, was appointed by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan as Special Representative in 2005. In 2008, the Human Rights Council welcomed the UN 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework that he proposed, and gave him another three-year mandate to develop practical recommendations to operationalize the Framework. His mandate concludes in June 2011.

The online forum is built and maintained on a pro bono basis by Daniel Teoh and Sean Doyle, students at The University of Western Ontario. The SRSG is deeply grateful for their support.

UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Business & Human Rights

UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Business & Human Rights

In July 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Harvard professor John Ruggie as his Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. In 2008, Ruggie proposed a policy framework for better managing business and human rights challenges, based on three pillars: the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for greater access by victims to effective remedy, judicial and non-judicial. The Human Rights Council was unanimous in welcoming the framework, and extended Ruggie's mandate by three years with the task of operationalizing it. Ruggie's aim is to develop guiding principles for each of its three pillars; his mandate concludes in 2011.

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