[*]

Human Rights Impact Assessment

The following resources have been identified by teachers as particularly useful as classroom material, assigned readings, and research sources for Human Rights Impact Assessment:

• Readings

• Primary Sources

• Human Rights Impact Assessments

• HRIA Methodologies

• Commentary – Business

• Commentary – Legal

• Commentary – Policy

• Reports – Civil Society

• Reports – Business

• Links

Readings

Primary Sources

• Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, UN doc. A/HRC/17/31 (21 March 2011), Principles 16-21.

• OHCHR, The Corporate Responsibility to Respect:  An Interpretive Guide, 28, 31-56, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/HR.PUB.12.2_En.pdf.

Human Rights Impact Assessments

• BP, Executive Summary, Tangguh LNG HRIA (2004).

• The Coca-Cola Company, Responsible Investment in Myanmar (Dec. 12, 2013).

• The Danish Institute for Human Rights and Nestle, Talking the Human Rights Walk: Nestlé’s Experience Assessing Human Rights Impacts in its Business Activities (2013).

• Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), Human Rights Impact Assessment for the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project (Aug. 2013), available at: http://www.misereor.org/fileadmin/redaktion/HRIA_Human_Rights_Impact_Assessment_Tampakan_Copper-Gold_Project_August2013.pdf.

• Lloyd Lipsett, Nevsun Resources Bisha Mine Human Rights Impact Assessment (LKL International Consulting Inc., Montreal, 2014).

A current and on-going HRIA of a mine in Eritrea by a professional HRIA consultant. It is one of the very few made public and is part of a continuing lawsuit and controversy in Canada.

• Nomogaia HRIAs (available at: http://nomogaia.org/work/).

These include multiple HRIAs on various kinds of business operations around the world. They are detailed examples published by an independent non-profit think-tank, with no support from the companies studied.

• • Paladin Uranium Mine, Malawi (initial HRIA 2009 and repeated monitoring reports 2011, 2014, 2015)
  • Green Resources Tree Planation, Tanzania (2009)
  • Dole Pineapple Plantation, Costa Rica (2010)
  • World Bank Funded Power Plant, Myanmar (2014)
  • Disi Water Pipeline, Jordan (2015)

• On Common Ground Consultants Inc., Human rights assessment of Goldcorp’s Marlin Mine (2010).

• TwentyFifty, Assessing human rights impacts: Kenya pilot project report. Nairobi: Kuoni (2013).

HRIA Methodologies

• BSR, Conducting an Effective Human Rights Impact Assessment, Guidelines, Steps, and Examples (March 2013), available at:  http://www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_Human_Rights_Impact_Assessments.pdf.

• The Danish Institute for Human Rights, Human Rights Impact Assessment Guidance and Toolbox (2016), available at:  http://www.socialimpactassessment.com/documents/hria_guidance_and_toolbox_final_jan2016.pdf.

• International Business Leaders Forum, IFC, and the UN Global Compact, Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment and Management, available at: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/human_rights/GuidetoHRIAM.pdf.

• IPIECA, Integrating human rights into environmental, social and health impact assessments: a guide for the oil and gas industry (2013), available at: http://www.ipieca.org/news/20131206/integrating-human-rights-environmental-social-and-health-impact-assessments.

• NomoGaia, Human rights Impact Assessment Toolkit, available at: www.nomogaia.org.

• Oxfam, Community-based human rights impact assessment initiative (2014.), available at: http://policy-practice.oxfamamerica.org/work/private-sector-engagement/community-based-human-rights-impact-assessment-initiative/.

An introduction to Oxfam’s continuing work developing and promoting community-based HRIAs, a fundamental alternative to the standard company- driven HRIAs. The Oxfam approach is based on the work carried out by Canadian aid organization Rights and Democracy (R&D), whose 2008 guide, Getting it right: a step by step guide to assess the impact of foreign investments on human rights, includes case studies.

• Shift and the CEO Water Mandate, Guidance for Companies on Respecting the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation: Bringing a Human Rights Lens to Corporate Water Stewardship, available at: http://ceowatermandate.org/files/business-hrws-guidance.pdf

Commentary – Business

• Christine Bader, The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist:  When Girl Meets Oil (Boston: Bibliomotion, 2014), 1-42.

• James Harrison, Establishing a Meaningful Human Rights Due Diligence Process for Corporations: Learning from Experience of Human Rights Impact Assessment, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal (Vol. 31, June 2013), 107-117.

• James Harrison, Human Rights Measurement: Reflections on the Current Practice and Future Potential of Human Rights Impact Assessment, Journal of Human Rights Practice (Vol. 3, July 2011), 162-187.

Commentary – Legal

• John F. Sherman III and Amy K. Lehr, Human Rights Due Diligence:  Is It Too Risky? The CSR Journal (Vol. 6, Jan. 2010), available at: http://meetings.abanet.org/webupload/commupload/IC634100/newsletterpubs/CSRJournalJanuary2010.pdf.

Commentary – Policy

• Felner, Human rights impact assessments: a review of the literature, differences with other forms of assessments and relevance for development. (Washington, D.C.: Nordic Trust Fund, World Bank, 2013).

• Kendyl Salcito, Jureg Utzinger, Mitchel Weiss, Anna Münch, Burt Singer, Gary Krieger, and Mark Wielga, Assessing human rights impacts in corporate development projects, Environmental Impact Assessment Review (Vol. 42, Sept. 2013), 39-50 (2013), available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2013.03.002.

A formal academic paper on the development of HRIAs, with a detailed description of a leading methodology.

• Mark Taylor, Human Rights Due Diligence: The Role of States -2013 Progress Report, 3-14, available at:  http://eu-roadmap.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Plenary-B-Mark-Taylor-HRDD-the-Role-of-States.pdf.

• Simon Walker, The future of human rights impact assessment and trade agreements (Cambridge, U.K.: Intersentia 2009).

Reports – Civil Society

• Institute for Human Rights and Business, The “State of Play” of Human Rights Due Diligence: Anticipating the Next Five Years (Jun. 2010), available at: http://www.ihrb.org/pdf/The_State_of_Play_of_Human_Rights_Due_Diligence.pdf.

• Oxfam America, Community Voice in Human Rights Impact Assessment, available at: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/COHBRA_formatted_07-15_Final.pdf.

• Wilton Park, Conference, Taking Stock of the UN Guiding Principles One Year On (2012), available at: www.wiltonpark.org/uk/wp-content/uploads/wp1172-report.pdf.

Reports – Business

• Shift, Using Leverage in Business Relationships to Reduce Human Rights Risks, (Nov. 2013), 3-13, available at: http://shiftproject.org/sites/default/files/Using%20Leverage%20in%20Business%20Relationships%20to%20Reduce%20Human%20Rights%20Risks.pdf.

• UN Human Rights Reporting Framework, Implementation Guidance on Salient Human Rights (2015), 22-24, available at: http://www.ungpreporting.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/UNGuidingPrinciplesReportingFramework_withimplementationguidance_Feb2015.pdf.

Links

Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Human Rights Impact Assessment.

WikiPedia, Human Rights Impact Assessment.

[*] This bibliography may be cited as:

Mark Wielga, “Teaching Resources for Human Rights Impact Assessment,” in Teaching Business and Human Rights Handbook (Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, 2016), https://teachbhr.org/resources/teaching-bhr-handbook/teaching-notes/human-rights-impact-assessment/resources/(opens in a new tab).