"Spain and the Implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities", 2014

In 2011, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations adopted by consensus the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights...The Guiding Principles can be considered a legal instrument of soft law that provides guidance to States on measures to be taken with respect to the three pillars of the United Nations Framework Protect, Respect, Remedy, that is, the State’s obligation to protect from potential abuses by companies, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and the State’s obligation to provide effective remedies to those affected violations and abuse of their rights...Following the recommendations of the Commission...in 2011, and the EU Action Plan for human rights and democracy, approved in 2012 by the Council of the Union, and in line with countries such as the UK, Holland, and Denmark...the Spanish Government is finalizing a National Plan on business and human rights to implement the UN Guiding Principles. The National Plans constitute a programmatic tool for national implementation of that instrument of soft law; from a substantive perspective they offer a great opportunity...to accomplish their obligations to prevent, mitigate, and remedy the negative impacts of companies on human rights in a manner consistent with their international obligations in the field of human rights. [Currently only available in print]