OHCHR LAUNCHES HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUSINESS LEARNING TOOL

Geneva, 5 July 2007- The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights launched today the Human Rights and Business Learning Tool, an electronic learning course aimed at raising the importance of integrating human rights within companies’ corporate activities.

The Human Rights Business Learning Tool was launched as High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour joined the UN Secretary General, business leaders, civil society, trade unions, representative of other UN agencies, and government ministers in the Global Compact Leaders Summit.

The tool’s objective is to help managers and corporate social responsibility professionals in companies participating in the UN Global Compact, as well as those not yet participating, to understand human rights and how they are relevant to their business operations. The tool focuses on the two Global Compact human rights principles that are:

Principle 1: Business should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, and
Principle 2: Make sure that they are not complicit in human right abuses.

The tool also focuses on the related concepts of spheres of influence and complicity.

The tool is accessible on the websites of OHCHR and the UN Global Compact at the following addresses:
http://ohchr.org/english/issues/globalization/business/HR_business_learning.htm
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/Issues/human_rights/index.html