Businesses need to develop, support policy to protect human rights: NHRC

MUMBAI: Business enterprises need to shoulder the responsibility of protecting human rights, National Human Rights Commission of India's (NHRC) Chairperson Justice Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu said at a conference organised by Confederation of Indian Industry ( CII) in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Justice Duttu cited United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights developed by John Ruggie and endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2011 that rests on three pillars – protection, respect and remediation to all those whose rights are violated.

"To fulfil these, there is a need for a policy commitment to respect human rights, evolved at the highest level, by the companies. And, this should be followed by the process of due diligence," he added.

NHRC, whose mandate is to protect and promote human rights in the country, is seeking inputs of business representatives on the draft self-assessment tool to be voluntarily used by the businesses to gauge possible human rights violations.

NHRC has earlier raised concerns regarding large scale industrial and mining projects by Vedanta, Tata Steel and Posco.