Ministers from OECD and developing economies will today agree new guidelines to promote more responsible business conduct by multinational enterprises, and a second set of guidance to limit the use of conflict minerals.
Forty-two countries will commit to new, tougher standards of corporate behaviour in the updated Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: the 34 OECD countries plus Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Peru and Romania. The updated Guidelines include new recommendations on human rights abuse and company responsibility for their supply chains, making them the first inter-governmental agreement in this area.
The Guidelines establish that firms should respect human rights in every country in which they operate. Companies should also respect environmental and labour standards, for example, and have appropriate due diligence processes in place to ensure this happens. These include issues such as paying decent wages, combating bribe solicitation and extortion, and the promotion of sustainable consumption.
See full Press Release.
Posts
