OECD Guidelines OECD Guidelines Chapter 4: Human rights
A chapter about human rights was added to the OECD Guidelines in 2011. Governments have the duty to protect human rights. Additionally enterprises have a responsibility to respect internationally recognized human rights.
This includes the following:
- To acknowledge and respect internationally recognized human rights and to help prevent or tackle violations thereof by third parties. These internationally recognized human rights are stated within The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and address topics concerning: the right to life, right to freedom, equality before the law and due process, no unfair imprisonment, no torture, no slavery, the right to privacy, the right to property, freedom of speech, the right to social security, the right to relax, the right to have shelter, food and education, the right to peace and the duty to protect these rights.
- To address and reduce unfavorable impacts on human rights, directly related to your business or your value chain.
- Have a clear policy demonstrating that your enterprise respects human rights.
- Execute due diligence on human rights in your value chain. This means, to perform a risk analysis, which maps potential human right risks and what measures are taken to prevent or reduce these risks.
- Cooperate and contribute to sustainable access to remedy for victims when a situation arises in which your business or that of that of your business partners is affecting human rights unfavorably.
