Donor: Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade
Duration : April 2013 – January 2014
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The Business Leaders Forum Serbia in cooperation with Belgrade centre for Human Rights held a workshop for the representatives of business sector „Business and Human Rights,“ on 29 april 2014. During the workshop United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the project Human Rights and Business Portal: Serbia were presented.
DIHR’s blog post: Serbia’s Informal Waste Dumps
DIHR’s blog post: Serbia’s Ongoing Privatisation
BCHR’s blog post: SERBIA: Women in the Workplace
BCHR’s blog post: Concerns Over Privacy in Serbia’s Telecom Sector
Trough implementation of the project Human Rights and Business Portal: Serbia, Belgrade Center for Human Rights in partnership with Danish Institute for Human Rights introduced to Serbian general and expert public relatively new human rights concept. In world, there is growing attention on how business operations can impact human rights of employees and of individuals in entire communities and countries but businesses are often unaware of their potential impact on different aspects of societies in which they operate. On the other hand existing sources of information are incomplete, expensive and inaccessible, so that companies that have committed to respecting human rights sometimes lack the processes and systems to detect risks in their operations. BCHR activities were step towards putting Serbia closer to the countries with high respect for human rights in different aspects of business. This project ensured access to a free and comprehensive resource for all relevant stakeholders to identify, assess and address human rights and business challenges in Serbia, as well as opportunities to facilitate business support for development.
Main stage of the project was production of Human Rights and Business Country Briefings for Serbia. Country Briefings covered potential business impacts on the human rights and labor standards enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights and in a range of International Labor Organization Conventions. Briefing covered with sensitive labour issues like vulnerable groups, child labor, forced labor, environment, land and property, etc.
Country Briefings is be base for consultation and dialogue on human rights and business with relevant state, corporate and civil society actors in order to identify relevant initiatives for addressing human rights and business issues identified in the briefings and to support actors and facilitate dialogue among actors in the implementation of identified initiatives.
Country Briefings is part of the Human Rights and Business Country Portal that will be created by Danish Institute for Human Rights. Portal is the first free resource for companies to identify, assess and address human rights risks in their operations and supply chains around the world.
Open Dialogue on the Impact of Business on Human Rights in Serbia was organised on November 6th 2013. Among more than 50 participants there were representatives of business and their associations, state bodies, trade unions, NGOs, international organizations, scholars and journalist. In the introductory part participants were introduced with UN Guiding principles on business and human rights, the Human Rights and Business Country Portal – first free database that will help companies identify, assess and address human rights conditions in the countries where they have operations or supply chains and the main Belgrade center for Human Rights’ research results.
Open dialogue gave participants an opportunity to discuss relevant issues on potential impact of business on human rights and formulate recommendations. The discussion took place in two parallel panels, one focusing on labor related rights, including vulnerable groups in the workplace, occupational health and safety, working conditions, and trade unions unionization. The topic of the second panel was Human Rights Protection Mechanisms in Information Society, particularly protection of privacy. Recommendations were included in the Brief for Serbia, part of Human Rights and Business Country Portal that was launched.
More on project activities and results you can find here.
This project is financially supported by The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade www.norveska.org.rs
