Banktrack Blog

Banks and Human Rights – the Thun Group Discussion Paper

Jan 222014

By Andreas Missbach, Berne Declaration and BankTrack, 22 January 2014

The Thun Group was formed when a group of banks came together in May 2011 in Thun, Switzerland,to discuss what the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) may mean for the banking sector. In October 2013 the group issued a discussion paper supported by seven international banks. Although no consultation of civil society has taken place and although the two-year process that led to the Thun group discussion paper seemed to constitute a “managing down” of expectations BankTrack welcomed the Thun Group’s paper as an important step. At the Business and Human Rights Forum of early December 2013 in Geneva BankTrack presented an analysis of the discussion paper that is summarized below.

BankTrack at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights

Dec 122013

By Ryan Brightwell, BankTrack, 12 December 2013

From the 2^nd to the 4^th of December, some 1,700 delegates from around the world descended on Geneva for the second UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. Gathering underneath the Spanish artist Miguel Barcelo’s stunning ceiling, representatives of states, business and civil society spent three days discussing the state of implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a non-binding global standard for preventing human rights abuses by business adopted unanimously by the UN Human Rights Council two years ago.