Delivered by: James Bischoff, Legal Adviser, U.S. Mission Geneva
Time: 1 minute 30 seconds

Members of the Working Group,

I'm delivering this statement on behalf of a number of States.

We thank the Working Group for its report. The UNGPs created a common understanding of the duties of governments and responsibilities of businesses through the three-pillar framework. To highlight a few achievements:

• Protect: Over 50 States have adopted or are developing National Action Plans and many have adopted laws to strengthen accountability, including on due diligence, supply chain transparency, and environmental protection.
• Respect: A growing number of businesses are integrating human rights considerations into business management and conducting human rights due diligence based on the UNGPs. Corporate benchmarking and reporting have generated a “race to the top” toward stronger protective frameworks.
• Remedy: States have created new mechanisms to ensure access to remedy where business operations have adversely affected human rights, and businesses are increasingly developing operational-level grievance mechanisms and remediation processes. The Working Group and OHCHR have produced a robust body of best practices.

As the Working Group acknowledges in its report, one key factor behind the wide acceptance of the UNGPs has been the multistakeholder dialogue that led to their development and that has characterized their implementation. The success of efforts to build upon them in the next decade will depend upon maintaining this approach.

Question: What suggestions does the Working Group have for ensuring genuine multistakeholder input in future efforts to build upon the UNGPs?

Signatory States as of June 28, 2021 at 2:15pm:

1. Austria
2. Belgium
3. Bulgaria
4. Czech Republic
5. Denmark
6. Estonia
7. Finland
8. France
9. Germany
10. Greece
11. Ireland
12. Italy
13. Latvia
14. Lithuania
15. Luxembourg
16. Malta
17. Netherlands
18. Poland
19. Portugal
20. Romania
21. Slovakia
22. Slovenia
23. Spain
24. Sweden
25. Japan
26. United States of America
27. Albania
28. Armenia
29. Australia
30. Canada
31. Iceland
32. Korea
33. Norway
34. Switzerland
35. United Kingdom
36. Ukraine
37. Argentina
38. Colombia
39. Guatemala
40. Uruguay
41. Ghana
42. Liechtenstein