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Our approach to human rights
Our approach starts from our support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and from our belief that companies can and should play a constructive role in promoting these rights. It involves a clear commitment in our Business Principles, an understanding of the different responsibilities of governments and companies, and a range of practical efforts to help.
Our General Business Principles state that we will:
"respect the human rights of our employees..." and “…conduct business as responsible corporate members of society, to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to support fundamental human rights in line with the legitimate role of business…"
We look for practical ways to support human rights that are directly related to their business activities, and that encourage and help governments improve their human rights records.
To help us meet our responsibilities we:
- set a common approach to specific human rights issues;
- turn our commitment to human rights into training, tools and guidelines;
- incorporate human rights into our annual assurance letter from each operations or businesses to our Chief Executive; and
- support international declarations and conventions that have been developed to foster human rights.
We participated in a United Nations initiative - opens in new window to determine the boundaries of responsibility between companies and governments. We welcome the UN Special Representative’s interim report: Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights - opens in new window, which came out in April 2008. We are in broad agreement that issues related to human rights and business should be clarified.
