Dignity, freedom, and justice for all
Marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the year-long Human Rights 75 initiative seeks to shift the needle of understanding and action towards greater knowledge of the universality of the declaration.
A key role of Ipieca is to raise awareness of UN conventions and activities, and provide the guidance and tools to help contribute to achieving them. The fifth Ipieca Principle, a condition of membership, is to support the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).
Ipieca and human rights
Human rights are central to Ipieca’s work. Ipieca provides global leadership on the interaction between the industry, people and communities by acting as a forum to promote high standards and share good practice. It helps the oil, gas and alternative energy industry to operate responsibly and proactively to contribute to society where it can, whilst engaging positively with communities and stakeholders.
Ipieca and its members took part in the initial consultation and development of the UNGPs which clarify the state duty to protect human rights and make respect for human rights a core expectation of business. Since the UNGPs were launched, Ipieca has worked to produce guidance covering a wide range of human rights issues to support the industry to operationalise the UNGPs.
In 2023, Ipieca contributed to two UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights’ consultations:
- Extractive sector, just transition and human rights: Ipieca emphasised the need for global cooperation for a just transition, a clear just transition definition, adherence to human rights standards, and corporate responsibility aligned with the UNGPs.
Click here to see our inputs published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. - Investors, ESG and human rights: Ipieca provided guidance on aligning ESG approaches with the UNGPs, and recommended the integration of human rights into investment plans, and collaboration with UN bodies. Click here to see our inputs published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
- Extractive sector, just transition and human rights: Ipieca emphasised the need for global cooperation for a just transition, a clear just transition definition, adherence to human rights standards, and corporate responsibility aligned with the UNGPs.
Ipieca also contributed to the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights’ Compendium of practice which provides examples and approaches to human rights work being undertaken by key business organizations.
Ipieca good practice guidance and tools
These practical guidance and tools enable oil, gas and alternative energy companies to embed human rights in their on the ground operations and management systems:
- Human rights due diligence guidance
- Human rights introductory awareness video
- Online labour rights training
- Just transition literature review
- Community development agreements guidance
- Community grievance mechanisms in the oil and gas industry
- Ipieca-WBCSD Accelerating action: an SDG Roadmap for the oil and gas industry
