Organized by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and the International Bar Association Legal Policy and Research Unit
Short description of the session:
This session aims to be an open and constructive round table-style discussion with attendees. Led by business lawyers and based on the practical obstacles to implementing respect for human rights and human rights due diligence into client advisory work this session will stimulate a discussion about creative and innovative solutions to scaling up human rights due diligence in client advisory work.
This session will identify current challenges across a number of key practice areas by drawing on business lawyers’ practical experience advising business on business and human rights issues. By connecting some of the findings in the recent UN Working Group Report to the UNGA on human rights due diligence to business lawyers' practical experience, this session will seek to move the discussion from what
should be done, to
why it is not happening and
how things might change. Speakers have been chosen to focus on issues that come up across a range of legal practice areas, including corporate M&A transactions, large-scale project based transactions, international sanctions, board-level and corporate advisory, financial crimes, international arbitration and disputes and compliance.
Session objectives:
To draw out some of the findings in the recent report of the Working Group to the UN General Assembly on human rights due diligence (A/73/163), specifically how stakeholders, can contribute to the scaling up of effective human rights risk management and due diligence by:
- identifying why respect for human rights and HRDD is not more widely embedded into the standard business and legal practice?
- drawing on practitioners’ experience advising businesses to understand the practice-based challenges to more widespread implementation of respect for human rights and HRDD across legal practice areas and advisory work
- stimulating a practical discussion about how these obstacles can be overcome, if at all?
Key discussion questions:
- What are some of the key obstacles to embedding respect for human rights and HRDD within the work of business lawyers, focusing on specific areas of practice and advisory work?
- What needs to change? How?
Format of the session
The session will be an interactive and conversational roundtable-style discussion. Following a brief introduction, the moderator will pose two to three questions to each speaker to elicit insight from their different perspectives. This will then transition into a broader conversation amongst the speakers and the audience, with attendees offering comments and posing questions.
Background to the discussion:
Business lawyers are a key stakeholder group to engage if human rights due diligence is to be implemented more widely beyond a small group of early adopter. However, the recent report of the Working Group on human rights due diligence (A/73/163) highlights a number of challenges to embedding human rights due diligence into business practice related to the work of business lawyers citing a "reluctance or even pushback from traditionally oriented legal counsel, both in-house and external" and a "lack of integration of business and human rights into the core advisory services of corporate law firms".
At the same time, it identifies the great potential for business lawyers to integrate advice on human rights due diligence more widely as part of advisory services for clients and recommends that "law firms and bar associations integrate human rights risk management in line with the Guiding Principles as a core element of the role of business lawyers as "wise counselors". There is also a very strong emerging view within the legal profession that advice on human rights risk management forms a core component of providing legal and commercial advice to businesses.
Whilst a lot of positive developments have occurred within the legal profession since the adoption of the UNGP in 2011, a lot of work still needs to be done as the majority of businesses and their advisors around the world remain unaware, unable or unwilling to recognize a responsibility to respect human rights and implement human rights due diligence.
Creative and innovative solutions will only emerge if we are honest about what's not working in practice and why. This panel is made up of leading legal experts in this field who understand challenges in practice and who can provide recommendations for overcoming these obstacles.
