Former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights John Ruggie, now a senior advisor to our CSR practice, recently authored an article in Corporate Secretary magazine in which he observed that there has been a "convergence of expectations" with regard to business responsibilities in the area of human rights.

These expectations are set forth in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, authored by Professor Ruggie and his team. As discussed previously, these Principles were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in June of this year. Central to the Principles is the expectation that companies have a responsibility to respect human rights and that this requires companies to conduct human rights due diligence on their operations. As noted by Professor Ruggie, [h]uman rights due diligence requires companies to develop effective policies and procedures to assess the actual and potential human rights impacts associated with their activities and business relationships, and to act upon the findings.