National implementation processes for the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: towards gender-responsive approaches

ABSTRACT

Women are disproportionately and differently affected by adverse business-related human rights impacts. Despite this, to date there has arguably been too little attention to the rights of women and girls in processes to implement the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), including National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights (NAPs). This poses a problem for states and other actors involved in such processes, as inadequate attention to the rights of women and girls risks perpetuating and normalising the systemic discrimination faced by women and girls in societies. This article identifies gaps in gender analysis of five select business and human rights topics (labour; land; essential services; trade and investment; and remedy) and provides suggestions as to how states might strengthen their gender focus when addressing these topics in their NAPs. We argue that UNGPs national implementation processes must be gender responsive if they are to make a meaningful contribution to addressing gender discrimination and bringing about substantive equality. To conclude, we examine the 2019 Gender Guidance from the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, which provides a useful framework for how this may be achieved in practice, and suggest that it should be utilised by states in UNGPs implementation processes going forward.

Keywords:

• international human rights law
• United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
• National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights
• gender equality
• gender-responsive policy
• women’s empowerment

Notes

¹ While NAPs should be informed by national baseline studies, such studies are not the focus of this article.

² To the extent that conclusions can be drawn at this stage (the majority of NAPs to date have been produced in Europe; the only NAP produced in Africa to date—Kenya’s—is still awaiting governmental approval), taking a gender-neutral approach does not appear to be region specific.

³ For further information about the methodology underpinning the Global NAPs website, see globalnaps.org/about/.

⁴ According to that paper, around half of the NAPs issued by that time referred to gender, but many did so in passing or in reference to past actions only. Very few undertook a meaningful gender analysis (Morris et al. 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linnea Kristiansson

Linnea Kristiansson is an independent human rights research consultant. She researches different areas of human rights law at the national and international levels and undertakes projects with and produces materials for civil society actors on various human rights issues. Her research interests include the intersection between business and human rights; gender equality; and access to remedy. Her academic background includes an LLM from Sweden and an LLB from the United Kingdom.

Nora Götzmann

Nora Götzmann is Senior Adviser in Human Rights and Business at the Danish Institute for Human Rights—Denmark’s national human rights institution. She is also Adjunct Researcher at the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her current research, project work and academic teaching focuses on capacity building of national human rights institutions; gender, in particular the rights of women and girls; access to remedy; and human rights impact assessment. Nora has published articles, book chapters, blogs, conference papers and institutional reports on a wide range of business and human rights topics and is editor of the Handbook on Human Rights Impact Assessment (Edward Elgar, 2019).