for the United Nations on business and human rights has asked for an
extra year to finish his work.
John Ruggie, special representative of the UN secretary-general on
business and human rights, was asked in mid-2005 to produce a final
report this spring on what action the UN might take to address the
human rights impacts of multinationals.
Ruggie handed a 26-page document to the UN Human Rights Council late
last month, but it contained little in the way of conclusions. Its
headline recommendation was that another 12 months were needed ‘to
submit clear options and proposals’.
The request will prolong the debate over what role the UN should play
in regulating the behaviour of multinational corporations. Ruggie was
appointed as special representative after a subcommission of the UN
Commission on Human Rights published draft norms on the
responsibilities of transnational corporations more than two years ago.
However, the norms, which would require monitoring of companies’
activities and the prospect of legal challenge as the voluntary human
rights standards become accepted practice, proved controversial. The UN
has since backtracked on them in the face of opposition from business
groups and the US government (EP7, issue 5).
Ruggie, former UN assistant secretary-general, was expected to make an
assessment of the likely value of the norms in improving the human
rights performance of companies, and if necessary to suggest an
alternative way forward.
But the document mentions the norms only once, and comes to no
conclusion as to their value. By contrast, his interim report last year
described them as ‘highly problematic in their potential effects’. The
new report is mostly a summary of the current state of ‘soft law’
relating to business and human rights, such as the OECD’s guidelines on
multinational corporations’ responsibilities.
Ruggie has commissioned 24 research papers and consulted with a large
number of interested parties around the world in the past 18 months,
but says he needs the extra year to develop the ‘views and
recommendations’ that he was invited to submit to the UN.
Sir Geoffrey Chandler, founder-chair of Amnesty International UK
Business Group, which supports the idea of norms, told EP that the
delay was a positive sign. ‘The extent, rigour, and openness of
Ruggie’s work has been quite remarkable,’ he said. ‘He inherited a bed
of nails after the norms controversy and has wisely recognized that to
produce standards at this stage would appear as a reworking of the
norms and would simply reignite opposition.’
