Asia Society Policy Institute

Principles for companies and governments that are seeking to uphold the respect for, protection of, and fulfillment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Offers a set of guidelines to prevent, address, and remedy human rights abuses in business operations.

Developers and Contractors (originally, "business enterprises") should:

• Abide by host countries’ laws and regulations and respect internationally recognized human rights.

The Host Country Government (originally, "states") should:

• Enforce laws that require developers and contractors to respect human rights. Assess the quality of these laws periodically and address any issues.
• Exercise enough oversight to meet international human rights obligations.

Developers and Contractors should:

• Conduct meaningful consultations with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders to gauge human rights risks.
• Provide external communication on how they address the human rights impacts of their activities. Both the form and the frequency of communication should reflect companies’ human rights impacts and be accessible to intended audiences.
• Provide for or cooperate in remediation through legitimate processes in case developers and contractors identify that they have caused or contributed to adverse impacts.

The Host Country Government should:

• Encourage and where appropriate require developers and contractors to communicate how they address their human rights impacts.

Developers and Contractors should:

• Respect human rights and avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities and address such impacts when they occur.
  • The responsibility refers to the “International Bill of Human Rights” and the “International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.”
• Carry out ongoing human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address adverse human rights impacts.
• Have the following in place:
  • A policy commitment to respect human rights.
  • A due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how their impacts on human rights are addressed.
• Processes to fix any adverse human rights impacts that they contribute to or cause.
• Draw on internal and/or independent external human rights expertise to identify and assess any real or potential adverse human rights impacts with which they may be involved.
• Conduct impact assessments and take appropriate action.

The Host Country Government should:

• Protect against human rights abuses by developers and contractors.
  • Take appropriate steps to prevent, investigate, punish, and redress such abuses through effective policies, legislation, regulations, and adjudication.
• Require, where appropriate, human rights due diligence.