Business support for HRDs & civic freedoms does exist but is not widespread. The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre just updated its list of 29 companies that do.
One of the most important and urgent opportunities for responsible business is to support civic freedoms – freedoms of association, assembly, expression and privacy – and the people who exercise the rights to defend all human rights. There is a clear normative responsibility for companies to respect human rights, as set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGPs), and companies also have a discretionary opportunity to go above and beyond these defined responsibilities and expectations. The UNGPs are a hard floor, not a low ceiling, for company action to support civic freedoms and human rights defenders (HRDs). This page gathers the latest news on business action in support of human rights defenders and features a collection of company and investor policies that mention HRDs.
You can download the List of statements and commitments on HRDs & civic freedoms (last updated in August 2020) from:
This would seem to fit nicely with the Open call for input by the UN: June 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the unanimous endorsement by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). A major step forward in efforts to prevent and address business-related human rights abuse, they provide a global authoritative framework for State duties and business responsibilities to achieve the UNGPs’ vision of “tangible results for affected individuals and communities, and thereby also contributing to a socially sustainable globalization.”
UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights is undertaking a new project to chart a course for a decade of action on business and human rights. This effort, informed by wide-ranging stakeholder consultations, will take stock of achievements to date, assess existing gaps and challenges, and, most importantly, develop an ambitious vision and roadmap for implementing the UNGPs more widely and more broadly between now and 2030.
Open call for input – ‘Have your say’ PDF: English
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Pages/UNGPsBizHRsnext10.aspx
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
June 22, 2021 at 13:13
[…] The Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises will present its reports, followed by an interactive dialogue, on 29 June. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/09/30/business-and-human-rights-updated-list-of-companies-sup…%5D […]