The Guiding Principles on business and human rights draw heavily on the concept of ‘due diligence' to define and elaborate the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. In the Introduction to the Guiding Principles, the responsibility to respect is defined in terms of due diligence:...

Non-state actors cannot breach international human rights law. Actions by an organisation, group or individual that is not a state, irrespective of the severe impact that those actions may have on the human rights of others, cannot cause a violation of international human rights law. This...

On 16 December 1966 the United Nations adopted the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This was the first global treaty that established legal obligations on states to protect a range of important economic, social, and cultural rights. Forty years later the vast...