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Help mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Click here to see the letter to all Global Compact participants co-signed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Georg Kell, Global Compact Office Executive Director inviting them to help mark the 60th anniversary of the UDHR.

A number of ideas for action are included in the letter. Other ideas for actions that participants and other stakeholders can take are:

Policies

  • Include the company's human rights commitments in internal policies and procedures.
  • Company policies containing human rights commitments can also be submitted to contact@business-humanrights.org for posting on that website.  More than 150 such policies are already posted there

Practices and implementation

  • Conduct a human rights risk and impact assessment
  • Ensure that the company's practices are aligned with (and do not undermine) the company's human rights commitments
  • Engage in dialogue with your stakeholders (including critics) about the company's human rights performance

CEO and Board level commitment

  • Engage your company at the executive/CEO level to express human rights commitments and promote the UDHR during the course of 2008  
  • Make human rights a board level issue

Employee awareness and training

  • Raise employee awareness of the existence of the Universal Declaration and the commemmorative year; encourage them to visit the website of the Universal Declaration
  • Train employees on human rights (you can use the OHCHR/UN Global Compact elearning tool available for free on this page)

Subsidiaries

  • Engage your subsidaries on the topic of human rights

Suppliers and other business partners

  • Promote your company's position on human rights with your suppliers and other business partners (as a term of business) and encourage their participation in the Global Compact
  • Encourage your suppliers and business partners to ask their suppliers and business partners to make explicit human rights commitments
  • Explore ways to enhance the transparency of human rights and labour practices in your supply chain
  • Train suppliers on human rights (click here for the OHCHR/UN Global Compact elearning tool)

Collective action

  • Encourage your industry association to put human rights on the agenda in 2008
  • Consider opportunities to engage in collective action to promote human rights in your industry or region.

Individual Engagement

(1 billion signatures are sought)

"For the last 60 years it's been governments that have been asked to sign the Universal Declaration. We hope that 2008 can be the year that individuals, not just governments, sign the declaration." - The Elders

In 2008, the Every Human Has Rights campaign has identified a different human rights theme for each month leading to the anniversary as below:

February: Responsibility to Protect
March: Women's Rights are Human Rights
April: Right to Health and Children's Right to Survival
May: Freedom of Expression
June: Freedom from Fear
July: Freedom from Hunger
August: Youth Realizing Rights
September: Right to Decent Work
October: Freedom from Want
November: Freedom from Discrimination

Click here for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in any of 335 languages.

Click here for further inforrmation about what the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is planning this year. Information kits and posters are also available for download.

Please send other ideas for how business can commemorate the 60th anniversary of the UDHR to globalcompact@un.org .

(Last Update 13 December 2007)