Human Rights Due Diligence in support of Decent Work (HRDD4DW)

Background

Over the last decade, enhancing business respect for human rights and achieving decent work in supply chains have been at the centre of numerous public and private initiatives to achieve more inclusive growth and sustainable development. Human rights due diligence, the process through which enterprises identify, prevent and mitigate their actual and potential adverse impacts on human rights and account for how they address such impacts, has become firmly embedded as a defining element of responsible business conduct, recommended by the three main international instruments on responsible business conduct (RBC), the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct.

Recognized human rights at work, including ILO fundamental principles and rights at work, the free choice of employment, the right to just and favourable conditions of work, the right to social security or the right to rest and leisure, are a critical component of any human rights due diligence process. The objective of the ILO in partnering with the EC on the HRDD4DW project is to enable ILO constituents – governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations - enterprises and other relevant stakeholders to harness the positive potential of mandatory and voluntary human rights due diligence initiatives to advance decent work for all.
 

Project outcomes

The overall objective of the HRDD4DW project is to ensure that human rights due diligence policies and processes effectively support the realization of labour rights and the decent work.

At the end of the project, ILO constituents and enteprises will have increased knowledge, capacity and engagement on the labour dimension of HRDD. The outputs to achieve this outcome are as follows:

1) Enhanced availability and user-friendliness of information from various ILO sources support effective HRDD policies and processes.

2) Strengthened capacity of ILO tripartite constituents on the labour dimension of HRDD for more effective and inclusive HRDD processes.
 

Implementation and management

Social dialogue is central to the HRDD4DW project’s approach with constituents and meaningful consultation with potentially affected stakeholders as essential components of human rights due diligence. This approach will guide the ILO in the development of global resources, tools and training that can be further tailored to and applied as part of other interventions at the regional, country, and sectoral levels.

At the end of the programme, the HRDD4DW project will have helped communicate key issues at the intersection of decent work and human rights due diligence, provided tools and trainings to that help address the labour dimension of HRDD provided improve and user-friendly access to ILO datato support HRDD policies and practices, and strengthened engagement of employers’ and workers’ organizations, including in specific sectors.

The project is managed by the Multinational Enterprises and Responsible Business Conduct Unit in ILO’s HQ in Geneva, and is implemented in close collaboration with different Departments and Units with the ILO such as the ILO Action Programme on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains, Sectoral Policies Department (SECTOR) and the Better Work Programme. It also contributes to the implementation of the ILO strategy on decent work in supply chains.
 

EU-ILO Human Rights Due Diligence in support of Decent Work factsheet

Find out more and see what our project in partnership with the European Commission aims to accomplish: