Background

The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (“the Working Group”) decided to devote the next annual thematic report to the 77^th session of the General Assembly to the examination of links between corporate political engagement practices and responsible business conduct.

The Working Group had previously planned to issue a short information note on this topic and issued a call for inputs in this regard with deadline for submission in November 2021. Inputs received in that context will be posted on the page in due course. Subsequently, the Working Group decided to further develop its work on this topic in the form of its annual thematic report to the 77^th session of the General Assembly. The report will explore how to encourage responsible political engagement, how to prevent what constitutes undue political influence by businesses— sometimes termed “corporate capture”—and how such activities may undermine and be inconsistent with the corporate responsibility to respect human rights set out by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“the Guiding Principles”).

The report will address how businesses should account for this responsibility and exercise human rights due diligence (HRDD) when engaging in a variety of activities in the political sphere – from lobbying to political donations and to decisions about whether to speak publicly about policy debates that may impact their employees and other members of their community. The report will focus on how HRDD can identify negative impacts for people and planet resulting from corporate political engagement activities and good practices in terms of how to prevent and mitigate such impacts. The report will aim to create greater coherence between businesses’ commitments to respect human rights and their political and lobbying activities, which are not always in alignment.

ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN TO DATE

• Concept note and summary of discussion of the expert consultation held on 12 August 2021 (PDF)
• Session at the 2021 Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights – recordings