Understanding the Link Between Business and Human Rights in Mexico Astrid Puentes Riano - The Huffington Post
go to original August 17, 2016

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: An Introduction (Mike Baab)

Has a corporation ever made you feel vulnerable? Have your rights been ignored? Does it seem that businesses have no oversight? Then this may be of interest to you.

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The principles reiterate that nations must control business activities, that corporations must respect human rights, and that victims must have access to justice.

The Council also created the Working Group on Business and Human Rights to put these principles into action.

The Working Group will visit Mexico from August 29 to September 7. This visit will be its second to Latin America, after a mission to Brazil in December 2015.

The Mexico visit is important for three reasons:

• Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world.

• Mexico doesn’t often invite international human rights institutions on official missions that generate recommendations the government must address seriously.

• The nation is experiencing a human rights crisis, evidenced by its position atop the lists of forced disappearances and attacks on journalists and human rights defenders (particularly environmentalists).

Expectations of the visit are high. The Working Group has received information about the human rights situation in Mexico and about business-influenced violations of those rights. The Group has yet to announce the places it will visit or an exact agenda, a complicated task considering the vast geography of the country and the variety of issues to address.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

Astrid Puentes Riaño is Co-Executive Director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA)

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