Summary

In the present report, submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to Council resolutions 17/4 and 44/15, the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises builds upon the findings drawn from the Working Group’s road map project, in which the Working Group proposed a course of action for accelerating the implementation of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. Specifically, the Working Group addresses the persistent capacity and knowledge gaps among stakeholders – particularly States, businesses and rights holders – to understand how the State duty to protect and the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in the context of business activities can be achieved in practice. Noting that one of the key action areas identified by the road map project calls for “more and better international cooperation and implementation support”, in the present report the Working Group surveys and assesses existing capacity-building measures and sets out recommendations on how the landscape of capacity-building efforts and initiatives can be shaped for the advancement of the business and human rights agenda.