Project Launch: Toolkit on the Investor Responsibility to Respect Human Rights

The Investor Alliance for Human Rights has launched a flagship project to develop a Toolkit on the Investor Responsibility to Respect Human Rights. The Toolkit was released on May 19, 2020. Read the concept note here.

Investors, like all business actors, have a responsibility to respect human rights and should act with due diligence in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business in Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the 2017 OECD guidance document Responsible Business Conduct for Institutional Investors.

Yet, most institutional investors remain unequipped with practical tools, tailored to the realities of their roles and day-to-day activities, to carry out this responsibility in a meaningful way across their institutional policies and practices.

The purpose of the Investor Toolkit Project is to help fill this gap by providing institutional investors with ready-to-use guidance, practical tools, and illustrative case studies to support implementation of their responsibility to respect human rights throughout the investment lifecycle. The Toolkit will:

• Make the case (with examples and other evidence) for why all investors can and should integrate respect for human rights across their investment activities and relationships;

• Outline specific steps that investors can take to prevent, mitigate, and address adverse human rights impacts connected with their investment activities, with a clear indication of how the steps relate to different types of investors and/or asset classes; and

• Offer analytical tools, checklists, templates, key questions, and case studies for investors to use, learn from, and apply in practice.

A group of leading investors based across a diverse range of countries and representing a variety of investor types are providing ongoing feedback and advice on the Toolkit as Project Leads. A group of civil society organizations, trade unions, investor associations, international organizations, benchmarks, national human rights organizations, and research organizations are providing ongoing feedback and advice as Project Advisors.

The final Investor Toolkit will be published in the first half of 2020.

A full concept note outlining the context for the project and the Toolkit's audience, scope, structure, and timeline can viewed here. 

For more information, please contact Rebecca DeWinter-Schmitt at rdewinter@iccr.org and Anita Dorett at adorett@iccr.org.