The Belgian Foreign Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation and the Belgian Federal Institute of Sustainable Development and are pleased to invite you to the "Peer-learning event: Second generation of NAPs on Business & Human Rights".

What will happen that day?

Dr. Anita Ramasastry of the UN working Group on Business and Human Rights will present lessons from the first 10 years of implementing the UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) and what's to come for the next decade.

Guus Houttuin, Senior adviser on value chains and Responsible Business Conduct form the European External Action Service, will give an overview of the existing and upcoming initiatives in the field of Business & Human Rights in the EU.

Two panels, one on the second generation of National Action Plans and the other on Smart Mix and national Human Rights Due Diligence legislation, will allow state-level participants to exchange on this topics.

Background

2011 marked 10 years since the endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) by the Human Rights Council. The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights undertook a project to take stock of achievements to date, assess existing gaps and challenges, and developed a roadmap for implementing the UNGPs more widely and more broadly by 2030. These were crucial outputs of the Working Group’s UNGP10+ project. Important element of implementing the UNGPs are national action plans on Business and Human Rights. Several countries, 15 from the EU, have adopted such plans.

After adopting a national action plan on business and human rights in 2017 and publishing the results of a National Baseline Assessment in 2021, the Belgian authorities decided in March 2021 to elaborate a second NAP.

Other countries are or will be in a similar situation of adopting a new generation of NAP. In order to exchange best practices about NAP 2.0, and in light of the UNGP10+ project, this event aims to bring together different State’s representatives having developed or working on a second generation national action plans on business and human rights.

Furthermore, the UNGPs states that a smart mix of measures – national and international, mandatory and voluntary – must be considered to foster business respect for human rights. A discussion and an exchange of experiences will focus on the effectiveness of a smart mix of measures, with special attention on Mandatory Human Rights Due diligence.

Programme

9.25 Welcome and registration

9.30 Introduction and overview of the event

9.35 Opening address by a Representative of the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs

9.40 Keynote Address by Dr. Anita Ramasastry (UN Working Group B&HR): UNGP10+: The lessons of the first 10 years of the UNGP what is the vision and roadmap for the next decade?

10.00 Overview of the existing and upcoming initiatives in the field of Business & Human Rights in the European Union by Guus Houttuin (EEAS)

10.15 Panel 1: Second generation of National Action Plans: What must be in it? What role for NAPs?

Moderator: Lieve Verboven, Director, ILO Office for the European Union and the Benelux countries

• Daniel Morris, Danish Institute for Human Rights
• Javier Martin Cerracin, Policy Officer, Human Rights, EEAS
• Claris Kariuki, Senior State Counsel in the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, Kenya
• Rémy Friedmann, Senior Advisor, Desk Human Security and Business, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
• Froukje Boele, Head of Public Policy, OECD Centre of Responsible Business Conduct

• Colombia, tbc

11.30 Coffee break

12.00 Panel 2: Smart Mix and national Human Rights Due Diligence legislation

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Huib Huyse, Head research group sustainable development at HIVA-KU Leuven

• Maylis Souque, Secretary General of the National Contact point, Ministry of Economy and Finance, France
• Gilles Goedhart, Team Leader Mandatory Due Diligence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands
• Wolfgang Bindseil, Head of Division Business and Human Rights, German Federal Foreign Office
• Christopher Patz, Policy Officer, European Coalition for Corporate Justice

12.50 Wrap-Up by Dr. Anita Ramasastry

13.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 17.00 Event on “Business & Human Rights in practice” with Belgian Stakeholders