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ICMM Human Rights Due Diligence Guidance

25 May 2023

ICMM’s updated Human Rights Due Diligence Guidance is an important resource that will help mining companies to better integrate human rights into existing risk management approaches.

  • Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. This means that all businesses, regardless of where they operate, have a responsibility to respect human rights.
  • The mining industry operates in regions where human rights abuses do occur, and companies have a responsibility to act in a way that avoids infringing on the rights of others, to leverage activities to stop infringements from happening, and to address or take part in remediation if needed.
  • With demand for metals and minerals critical for the energy transition set to increase dramatically, having the right human rights due diligence policies and processes in place is critical for a just and fair transition.
  • Applying ongoing human rights due diligence is a way for companies to proactively assess actual and potential human rights impacts, act upon the findings, track responses, and transparently communicate how impacts have been addressed.
  • While there has been significant improvement in how companies manage human rights due diligence processes, companies remain at different stages of integrating the UNGPs across their businesses.
  • ICMM first published guidance on the topic in 2012 (Human Rights in the Mining and Metals Industry: Integrating Human Rights Due Diligence into Corporate Risk Management Processes) to coincide with the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsing the UNGPs, and in 2018, ICMM became the first industry body to commit to upholding the UNGPs.
  • The 2023 updated Guidance responds directly to ongoing challenges faced by human rights practitioners in integrating the UNGPs across their organisations and provides an overview of leading practice and emerging regulation which is already driving performance improvements across the industry.
  • Change begins with us, but we won’t see the progress needed if we work alone. To ensure fundamental rights and freedoms are respected, we must work with governments, communities, civil society, and the financial sector if we are going to drive the change that is needed.
  • The Guidance has been designed as a set of practical tools, available for anyone to download and use.

Individual Tools

Herramientas individuales