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UK Network hosts Quarterly Meeting on Human Rights Issue Area
Monday, May 24, 2010

Shell hosted the UK Network’s second Quarterly Meeting of 2010 in London on 24 May. The focus of the meeting was the human rights issue area, with presenters sharing their experience of working in the field of business and human rights, and specifically conducting human rights impact assessments.

Andrew Vickers, Vice President, Policy & External Relations, Shell International, opened the meeting and highlighted the challenge for companies of talking about human rights. Andrew Cave, UK Network Chairman, emphasised the role of the UK Network in bringing companies and experts together to share and learn.

Professor Alyson Warhurst, CEO and Founding Director of Maplecroft, shared her company’s expertise in mapping the emerging human rights risk landscape for business. In particular, she outlined the challenges facing business in the new growth environment in which strong growth is to be found in countries where the legal and regulatory environments are weak and corruption is rife. She also emphasised the important role of markets and investors in shaping this new growth environment. Désirée Abrahams, Programme Manager at IBLF discussed her groundbreaking work on The Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment & Management and how companies can integrate human rights considerations into their management processes. She pointed to the range and complexity of human rights issues facing companies and that these touch multiple sectors. HRIA advocates a proactive eight-step approach in order for companies to understand and address potential human rights risks before they become a problem. Our final speaker, Karen Westley, Social Performance Lead and Social Investment Manager, Shell drew from her personal NGO experience of human rights risks as well as recent experiences in the Oil and Gas sector. She highlighted that companies need to think as much about the 'how' to conduct human rights impact assessments as 'what' issues to address.

Key messages that emerged during the presentations and the active Q&A session that followed were that stakeholder dialogue is a key step in the process of conducting a human rights impact assessment, that relevant local issues must be addressed, and that it is important to start as early as possible to get the process right.

For more information about the Quarterly Meeting, please contact the UK Network Secretariat.
Posted on 24/05/2010

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