It’s Friday 
and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring.
This week’s post includes: the U.S. Government’s amicus brief in Jesner v. Arab Bank; a Declaration from the Leaders of the G20; and a commitment to renew the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Update: On August 16, the Government of Australia announced that it would move forward with the development of a Modern Slavery Act.
Corporate counsel must increasingly assess the implications of new transparency statutes that require companies to make public disclosures as to their efforts to address certain human rights-related risks in connection with their business operations, including their supply chains.
Companies are also increasingly aware that their companies may be directly or indirectly linked to acts of human trafficking.… More
It’s Friday and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring.
This week’s post includes: a new report on human rights litigation in U.S. federal courts; new guidelines on the E.U. directive on non-financial reporting; and the release of the U.S. State Department’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons report.
This post, written by Seth Jaffe, a Partner in Foley Hoag’s Environmental practice, was originally posted on the firm’s Law and the Environment blog.
In February, I posted about the formation of the Climate Leadership Council and its push for what it calls its “Carbon Dividend” plan. In essence, it’s a gradually increasing carbon tax. The plan would be revenue neutral,… More
On June 14, 2017, the District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision in Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Court found that the Army Corps of Engineers (“the Corps”) had not adequately considered several issues in its environmental assessment (“EA”) for the Dakota Access Pipeline, and that therefore the Corps’ decision-making was arbitrary and capricious.
The EA was undertaken pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”),… More
It’s Friday and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring.
This week’s post includes: the announcement of a new corporate alliance intended to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace; the release of a paper by Professor John Ruggie on the development of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; and guidance from the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights on the human rights responsibilities of banks.… More
On May 31, shareholders at Exxon Mobil Corp. (“ExxonMobil”) voted in favor of a climate change resolution asking the company to publish an annual report on the business impact of measures designed to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees centigrade, the target set by the Paris Agreement.
The non-binding resolution passed with more than 62% of the votes cast. Specifically, the resolution asks that,… More
It’s Friday and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring.
This week’s post includes: a new report on the state of corporate human rights reporting; the passage of a shareholder resolution on climate change at Occidental Petroleum; and the latest Ministerial Declaration from the Labour and Employment Ministers of the G20.
On May 9, we released a public summary of our report “Good Practice for Managing the Social Impacts of Oil Pipelines in the United States.” A copy of the public summary of the report is available here.
The independent report was prepared by Amy Lehr, Cicely Parseghian, and Gare Smith.… More
It’s Friday and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring.
This week’s post includes: a jury verdict in the Quinteros v. DynCorp litigation; the latest GAO report on corporate conflict mineral disclosures; and a statement from the Scottish Parliament that investments agreements should only be signed after appropriate human rights due diligence.