Ursula Wynhoven
United Nations Global Compact Office

Human rights is a fundamental element of the United Nations and the Global Compact, the world's largest global corporate citizenship initiative. In fact, six out of the 10 Global Compact principles are devoted to human rights and labor issues.

It became clear that the UN needed the support of businesses in order to achieve our objectives, for example, on pervasive societal issues such as child and compulsory labor. The voluntary Global Compact provides companies with a framework to help them align their operations to our 10 principles.

We subscribe to the philosophy that companies can do well by doing good. Corporations can not only avoid harming human rights, but they can find ways to promote human rights, too, while strengthening their business. Multinational corporations can have a tremendous impact in the countries in which they operate. For example, a company with a large distribution chain can use its operations to encourage HIV prevention in areas otherwise hard to reach.

Much of the world's attention these days is focused on the issue of climate change. But that does not mean human rights can be forgotten. Unfortunately, human rights abuses continue to occur with regularity worldwide, and we want to make sure that the topic remains in the public eye, particularly as we mark the 60th anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December. We're encouraging companies to use this milestone year to step up their human rights and anti-corruption measures.

Human rights is still a relatively new area for businesses. The vast majority of firms don't understand how human rights can be relevant to them and their bottom lines. I was impressed to see that Ford actually uses the words "human rights" on its Web site. It's rare to see a company so actively engaged in these issues.

We're seeing companies take new approaches to supply chain management in an effort to stem the tide of human rights abuses. Monitoring and auditing are important, but they won't work in isolation. There are still many dilemmas about how you resolve and really improve the quality of working conditions. Even companies with strong human rights policies in place may find – much to their horror – that violations are occurring down the supply chain.

No one company is going to be perfect on every principle of the Global Compact. The challenge for companies is to support and respect human rights in ways that may not always be immediately obvious.

Ursula Wynhoven
Head, Policy & Legal and Special Assistant to the Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact Office