Human rights due diligence
Social Impact Assessment: Guidance for assessing and managing the social impacts of projects, published by the International Association for Impact Assessment in April 2015, suggests that human rights due diligence: ‘…refers to the expectation in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that companies must carry out a due diligence process in order to ensure that a proposed business action, transaction or acquisition has no hidden human rights risks (in other words, risks to people and communities, not only risks to the company). Since many social impacts are also human rights impacts, affected stakeholders are rights-holders with legal rights. This increases the significance of social impacts and the importance of social impact assessment. Social impacts are therefore serious matters that companies must address. For more information, refer to: ICMM 2012 Integrating Human Rights Due Diligence into Corporate Risk Management Processes.’