Human Rights Due Diligence Process

Pillar II of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights created a Due Diligence Process that should be implemented by ALL companies, regardless of their size, geographic location and economic sector, in order to ensure that they are adequately managing their risks of adverse human rights impacts.

This process has also been included by the OECD Guidelines and Guides and by a growing number of countries that are making it mandatory by regulation, such as Germany, France and soon, the entire European Union. 

In the coming years and in the short term, it is foreseeable that many countries around the world will make it legally obligatory for companies to carry out human rights due diligence processes.

These laws and standards include the obligation for companies to manage not only the rights risks of their own operations, but also those of their entire value chain, creating an enormous challenge for companies with supply chains in regions such as Latin America that include a significant number of SMEs. Therefore, purchasing companies will increasingly demand that all their suppliers and members of the value chain, including SMEs, demonstrate respect for human rights according to international standards, including reporting on how they carry out their due diligence processes. 

This is why at HumaneBiz we want to support all SMEs, including those located in regions such as Latin America, so that they can comply with these requirements using the support of expert consultants, thus demonstrating their respect for human rights with their adherence to the highest international standards in the field of Human Rights and Business. Only in this way will they be able to remain competitive in the medium and long term in global markets, under penalty of being replaced by local suppliers that do comply with these requirements. And only in this way will millions of people in the region benefit from increased respect for human rights on the part of SMEs, which account for nearly 80% of all companies incorporated in Latin America.