Human Rights Risk Assessment
Human Rights Risk Assessment is a process for rapidly identifying and prognosticating major actual and potential human rights risks of a business operation, capital project, supplier contract or investment. It is less time- and cost-intensive than full Human Rights Impact Assessment, but more evidence-driven than desk-based human rights reviews.
Below is a business person’s guide to HRRA. A practitioner’s guide (with full methodology) is forthcoming in 2018 in the Nordic Journal for Human Rights.
Human Rights Impact Assessment Toolkit
Human Rights Impact Assessment is a process for systematically identifying, predicting and responding to the potential human rights impacts of a business operation, capital project, government policy, or trade agreement. It is framed by international human rights standards and designed to complement other impact assessment and due diligence processes. It is also rooted in the realities of the particular project by incorporating the context within which it will operate from the outset.
In 2016, responding to feedback from users, we updated our HRIA platform, commissioning a dedicated program for cataloging. The program is 85 MB (compressed) and is too large to include on this website, but we are happy to send OS X, Windows and Linux versions to anyone who requests them. Please email us at info@nomogaia.org to request a copy.
Previously, in 2012 NomoGaia updated the HRIA toolkit and template to automate impact ratings scores using Excel. This development reduces human error and standardizes rating in a transparent way. The toolkit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Human Rights Resource Compendium
In collaboration with the American University Washington College of Law Human Rights in Business Program, along with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the ABA Center for Human Rights, we have worked to compile publicly available resources, case studies and literature on HRIA. The PDF File at right is updated frequently and provides hyperlinks to available resources. This information is also available in a more tech-friendly version right here. For recommendations and additional submissions, please contact us at rdewinter@rcn.com or info@nomogaia.org
How the HRIA tool works
Download the tool
Click on the “download tool” button on this page to transfer a zipped copy of our assessment tool to your computer. It includes both a guide and a template.
Watch the tutorial
Watch the two step-by-step video tutorials below for instructions on how to put the tool into action.
Gather data
Gather data on your project and fill in the appropriate areas in the template to build your assessment.
Video tutorial
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
Tutorial 3
Adapting HRIA to specific industries
The HRIA tool can be adapted to the needs of individual industries. Examples from certain key sectors are listed below:
Instructions in other languages
A summary of the Toolkit is available in the following languages:
Human rights policy tool
Rights-responsible companies take on a variety of duties in the name of respecting human rights. One of these is adopting a human rights policy.
Devising a human rights policy should be an involved and extended effort undertaken by senior leadership in consultation with a variety of junior staff, incorporating the specific rights issues that arise.
Policies are systems for corporate governance and statements of company values. A Human Rights Policy lays out a framework to define a company’s responsibility to respect human rights. NomoGaia has produced a “starter” human rights policy, upon which we hope companies will build. It reflects the standards set by the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.
