"National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights. A Toolkit for the Development, Implementation, and Review of State Commitments to Business and Human Rights Frameworks", 30 Jun 2014

In June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) unanimously endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Three years later, in June 2014, the UNHRC called on all Member States to develop National Action Plans (NAPs) to promote the implementation of the UNGPs within their respective national contexts.2 This development followed similar requests to Member States made by the European Union (EU) in 20113 and 20124 and by the Council of Europe (CoE) in 2014.5 Since 2011, and due in part to these initiatives, a number of individual States have developed and published NAPs on business and human rights, and many more are currently in the process. This report aims to support the development, implementation, and review of NAPs on business and human rights. It does so by providing a "NAPs Toolkit" that is intended to guide and assist governments and other actors in producing both National Baseline Assessments (NBAs) of current State implementation of the UNGPs and actual NAPs on business and human rights. It also presents a mapping and analysis of options at the international and regional levels for monitoring and review of NAPs once they are developed in order to optimize their value within and between countries as a means for improving governance, regulation, and, ultimately, respect for human rights. The NAPs Toolkit is also aimed at informing the current development of guidance on NAPs by the UN Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights), as well as other initiatives and projects focused on analyzing existing NAPs and issuing guidance for their development, implementation, and review.