Corporate Human Rights Responsibility, States' Duty to Protect and UN GPs' National Action Plans

With the recent Update of its 2013 National Action Plan the UK Government has given account of the process of implementation of the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In particular, the UK Government has listed the achievements made and the actions taken over the past two years in this regard. This Insight analyses the basic elements of the Update, their relationships with the Guiding Principles and the other NAPs. It also focuses on some specific issues raised by the 2016 Update analysis: the polycentric notion of corporate human rights due diligence; the debate over the extraterritorial application of corporate human rights due diligence and of corporate policies on human rights; the role of State-business nexus and the possible hierarchy amongst the three Pillars of the GPs.