"Making Globalization Work for all: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Through Business Respect for Human Rights," 14 Nov 2016

I suspect that many of you…were surprised…by the results of the US presidential election…Clearly, we must redouble our efforts…In keeping with the urgency of this challenge, my focus today is on the relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights…[F]or business to fully realize its contribution to sustainable development, it must put efforts to advance respect for human rights…A concerted effort by business to respect the human rights of workers in their global value chains would…[f]irst, by helping to ensure that people are paid a living wage…uplift those people’s situation significantly…A second benefit…would be to help manage the growing threat that globalization itself faces from populist forces in industrialized countries…So to conclude…my proposition to business…is that…respect for human rights…is at the very core of the people part of sustainable development. And as if that alone were not enough, it is also the key to ensuring a socially sustainable globalization, from which business stands to be a major beneficiary.