HRIA Conference 2007 [Pre-Conference Announcement]

Human Rights Impact Assessment for Private Enterprises and Corporate Stakeholders

The activities of private enterprises have an impact on both the human rights of those within the company and the human rights of the broader company. While environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA’s) are relatively well established in business, Human Rights Impact Assessments (including compliance assessments and risk assessments) are only recently being developed by organisations and companies in order to understand and manage the corporate impacts in the field of human rights.

Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA's), which are based on the International Bill of Human Rights, focus on each human right from a corporate perspective. While private enterprises could use HRIA’s within the company, subsidiaries or partner businesses, the corporate stakeholders (civil society organisations, community) could also apply a HRIA on the private enterprise and its activities.

During the conference, two workshops on Corporate HRIA’s will be organised. The workshops aim to provide a platform for representatives of private enterprises, NGO’s, international organisations, governments and academic institutions for sharing expertise and experiences with the development and use of Human Rights Impact Assessment tools in order to create a common agenda for further developments in this field.

Workshop 4 (Thursday afternoon): Sharing practical experiences

A marketplace is created aiming to reach a profound insight into the existing HRIA tools for business in order to achieve better integration. At this marketplace, various stand holders will explain the basic methodology and framework of their tools as well as practical experiences with these tools.

The tools that will be presented include: Human Rights Compliance Assessment (DIHR, Aim for human rights), HRIA for Foreign Investment Projects (Rights and Democracy), A Guide to HRIA ( IFC, IBLF and UN Global Compact), Guide Conflict-Sensitive Business Practice: Guidance for Extractive Industries (International Alert).

Questions that will be dealt with are: 

  • A conceptual framework of corporate HRIA tools
  • Common HRIA guiding principles
  • Compatibilities and differences between HRIA tools
  • Challenges and opportunities

Workshop 5 (Friday morning): Mapping the future

The aim of this workshop is to create a common agenda for further developments in the field of HRIA for business. The main issues discussed will be: 

  • the promotion of HRIA at the levels of private enterprises, corporate stakeholders, governments and international organisations
  • the extension of HRIA to other business sector and to small and medium sized enterprises
  • the role of the Human Rights Impact Resource Centre in sharing experiences with and promoting the use and development of HRIA tools