Shift and Mazars are pleased to launch a Discussion Paper on the development of public, global standards for reporting and assuring companies’ alignment with the UN Guiding Principles...This paper describes possible approaches to ensuring that the reporting and assurance standards are both meaningful for stakeholders and viable for companies, and that they add value to existing initiatives in the business and human rights arena, and on non-financial reporting and assurance. The paper invites comments on issues such as what a company should be required to disclose and what the assurance provider would need to review; what constitutes materiality in each case; the balance between forward-looking human rights risk management and the assessment of past human rights impacts; and the integration of perspectives of affected stakeholders in the assurance process...The Discussion Paper will be under consultation...from May 1 to July 1 2013.