There are a growing number of regulatory and other requirements for companies to report on their human rights performance. This has raised the question of what good reporting on company alignment with the UN Guiding Principles, as well as good assurance of such reports, should involve.
Thus, Shift and Mazars, in liaison with the Human Rights Resource Centre for ASEAN, launched a global, consultative initiative to develop public reporting and assurance frameworks based on the UN Guiding Principles. The proposed frameworks will be public and are intended to be relevant to, and viable for, all companies and auditors/assurance providers in any region, and to dovetail with existing reporting initiatives. A framing document:
- Recaps the rationale for the project;
- Summarises the project’s vision and objectives;
- Positions the project in the wider context of other initiatives and developments; and
- Describes the processes envisaged for consultation and collaboration.
In May 2013, the project team issued a discussion paper that recognized a range of challenges the project would have to tackle, with some ideas and questions on how they might be approached.
The project team invited interested parties to provide comments on the discussion paper during a two-month period, which was then extended for a further two months in light of the levels of interest. These comments, unless requested by the author to be kept confidential, are posted on HRRC’s dedicated webpage. The project team has issued a document responding to issues raised, updated as of October 2013, which summarises the themes emerging from those comments; provides some preliminary responses; and highlights priority issues for on-going consultation.
After 18 months of research and consultation, the United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework, the first comprehensive guidance for companies to report on human rights issues in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), was launched on 24 February 2015 in London. See the updates and learn more on the dedicated website for the UNGP Reporting Framework.
Find the documents pertaining to the project below.
Responding Document:
RAFI Consultations 2013 Take-Aways
Experts Consultation Reports:
- London, 17 October 2013
- New York, 23 October 2013
- Jakarta, 20 November 2013
- London, 24 April 2014
- New York, 16 May 2014
- Jakarta, 7 November 2014
Stakeholders Consultation Reports:
- Medellín, 30 August 2013
- Bangkok, 22 November 2013
- New Delhi, 25 March 2014
- Addis Ababa, 16 September 2014
CSO Consultation Reports:
RAFI is a project of:
