Human Rights Toolkit
for Financial Institutions

Structured along its three pillars, the UNGPs set out responsibilities for both states and businesses:

• States have a duty to protect human rights against abuse by third parties, including businesses, through appropriate policies, legislation, regulations and adjudication.
• Businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, even where states are not (fully) meeting their responsibilities. Depending on how businesses are involved with the impacts, this entails different responsibilities to avoid, cease, prevent, mitigate and remediate the impacts.
• States and businesses have a responsibility to ensure that affected rightsholders have access to effective remedy when experiencing actual negative impacts on their rights.

Whereas corporate risk assessments aim at identifying potential risks to the business, the UNGPs require businesses, including financial sector actors, to identify risks to people in order to address and account for actual and potential human rights impacts. The UNGPs outline the corporate responsibility to respect human rights: 

To apply the UNGPs, it is essential that businesses engage in a meaningful manner, throughout all steps of the process, those rightsholders affected or potentially affected by the business’s activities or their legitimate representatives. This concept of meaningful consultation is elaborated in the page on ‘Stakeholder Engagement’ for both financing and own operations.

Human rights are the most basic rights and freedoms which every person in the world should enjoy by virtue of being human. They are universal and based on the principle that all humans are equal in their dignity. Human rights are considered inalienable (cannot be taken away). All human rights are also indivisible and interdependent: this means that one set of rights cannot be enjoyed fully without the other. In international law, human rights are enshrined in the International Bill of Rights which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies and other UN conventions and agreements.

Labour-specific human rights are further defined in the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, as amended in 2022. Beyond the rights elaborated in the International Bill of Rights and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, new rights and issues have occasionally emerged. For example, the UN Human Rights Council recognised the right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment in 2022. The Advisory Opinion No. 23/17 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has also recognised the right to a healthy environment as an autonomous human right. Other judicial decisions, including decisions by the European Court of Human Rights, have also drawn a strong link between climate impacts and human rights. Regional agreements are also relevant, such as agreements on access to information, public participation and justice on environmental matters in Europe (Aarhus Convention) or Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú Agreement).

The right to a healthy environment was recognised by the UN General Assembly in July 2022. The right to a healthy environment generally contains both substantive and procedural elements.

• Substantive elements include: safe climate; clean air; healthy ecosystems / biodiversity; safe and sufficient water; healthy and sustainable food; non-toxic environment.
• Procedural elements include: access to information; public participation; and access to justice (including securing rights free from reprisal or retaliation).

Because the environment mediates a large number of human rights impacts, aligning with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights requires financial institutions and other businesses to consider environmental impacts within their human rights practices. This includes ensuring that due diligence, consultation, and other human rights practices reflect the substantive and procedural elements of the right to a healthy environment described above (e.g. through environmental impact assessments). Further information can be found in the information note by UN OHCHR, UNEP & UNDP exploring What is the Right to a Healthy Environment?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015 by all United Nations Member States and seeks “to realize the human rights of all (…)”. The 2030 Agenda defines actions for people, planet, and prosperity across in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). All SDGs are rooted in human rights and represent a call on business enterprises to use innovative solutions and resolve sustainable development challenges whilst protecting labour and human rights in accordance with relevant international standards.