What Do Company Directors Need To Know About Human Rights?

The Commission launched a short but significant guide today for the directors of UK companies, developed in collaboration with Shift. Its title says it all: ‘Business and human rights: A five step guide for company boards.’ These days it seems that ‘business and human rights’ stories are never far from the news: be it bonded labour in a mattress factory in Yorkshire or discrimination through blacklisting of workers by UK construction companies. By now, it’s pretty obvious – or it should be – that companies large and small can become involved with human rights abuses, whether in their own operations or, more typically for UK companies, through their ever more complex value chains.