The Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles

Who’s behind it? – Professor John Ruggie

How can it help? –  This open letter by Professor John Ruggie, author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and sent to the heads of the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, discusses in detail the relationship between the Guiding Principles and the SDGs. It notes that companies’ social development initiatives cannot substitute for measures to address the adverse human rights impacts their operations and relationships may have, and stresses that the starting point for meaningful SDG engagement must be a reduction in such negative impacts. This letter is a useful starting point for companies looking to explore and understand the intrinsic links that exist between the human rights and the development agendas.