Presentation PPTs: "Human Rights Due Diligence n the UNGPs" for Workshop-Conference The Current State and Future Trajectories of Human Rights Due Diligence Laws: New Legal Norms on Human Rights Due Diligence (6 Sept. 2023)

 As part of the preparation the book, Human Rights Due Diligence Laws: From Due Diligence Standards to New Legal Norms, Claire Methven O'Brien and I organized a Workshop-Conference at which the book's contributors could introduce their work to a wider audience and engage with other authors.

My task for that event was to consider a conceptual framework, grounded in the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, that might provide insights for the increasingly vigorous movement among states and international organizations, to develop regulatory frameworks around the concept "human rights due diligence."

Abstract: This contribution seeks to situate the concept of due diligence from its origins in the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. The development of the concept is examined with reference to its development between 2006 and the start of the mandate of John Ruggie as Special Representative to the UN Secretary General to the unanimous endorsement of the UNGP in 2011 by the Human Rights Council. The transformation of the concept from an operational level mechanism at the core of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in the UNGP 2nd Pillar to its key role as the embodiment of compliance based legality respecting the management of global production is then considered. Due diligence has become more than a method for more efficient operation of markets driven nudging (and thus disciplining) of economic behaviors. Due diligence has assumed a normative role as well. It serves as the means through which economic actors may become embedded in complex webs of interlinked administrative legalities that start with international normative projects, their transposition into domestic (or multilateral) legal orders, and their delegation first to the national administrative apparatus and then in its operational elements to the private actors who are expected to serve as the front line administrators of a global multi-layered system. The relationship between the precisely drawn 2nd Pillar due diligence concept, and the 1st Pillar state duty to protect human rights, along with the 3rd Pillar remedial obligation is considered. The transposition of these mechanisms to other regulatory frameworks is then explored.

The PPT of that presentation may be accessed HERE and follow below.  The video recording of the Workshop-Conference may be accessed HERE.