The 2017 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights starts today in Geneva, Switzerland, bringing together over 2,000 participants from government, business, and non-governmental organizations to discuss business-related human rights topics and share ideas and good practice. The forum aims to progress the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This year the theme is Realizing Access to Effective Remedy and draws on the third pillar of the UNGPs: the need to ensure access to effective remedies for victims of business-related human rights abuse.
Ipieca will be attending the forum and co-hosting a session with the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) - Do operational-level grievance mechanisms (OLGM) in the extractive industries work?
Practical experiences and lessons learnt will be shared from companies within the oil, gas and mining sectors on how they have designed and implemented OLGMs and provided access to remedy. Government, NGOs and civil society perspectives will also be covered.
The session will take place on Wednesday 29 November from 11:35 - 13:00, Room XXI, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
The panel will be facilitated by Helen Murphy, Senior Manager from Ipieca with speakers:
- Tural Valiyev, Group Social Performance Advisor from BP.
- Simon Wake, Principal Advisor of Communities from Rio Tinto.
- Pablo Lumerman, Dialogue and development facilitator and community-company-government conflict mediator, ACCESS facility
- Georgina Galloway, Acting Director, Responsible Business Practices Division, Global Affairs Canada.
Further information on the event can be found here.