Worldwide, the human rights agenda has reached a cross-roads. Stakeholders agree that human rights are a core necessity – but the roles and responsibilities of governments, business, and civil society towards achieving these goals remain less defined.

At the global level, Professor John G. Ruggie was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Business & Human Rights in 2005. Under this mandate, extending until 2008, Professor Ruggie convened a multi-stakeholder process for the UN-High Commissioner for Human Rights to draw out the current “state of play” on stakeholder responsibilities on human rights. The report "Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights" was released in April 2008.

Marking sixty years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, three leading organizations are launching this new initiative to foster greater integration of human rights principles into corporate sustainability reporting. The project - Human Rights: A Call to Action - is co-led by Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, and GRI.

Significant progress has been made by many corporate leaders in understanding the relevance of human rights to business since the Universal Declaration turned 50 a decade ago. Initiatives like the UN Global Compact have helped highlight the links between human rights and business issues such as managing legal and operational risk and reputation, meeting shareholder and stakeholder expectations and maintaining and motivating staff performance. The GRI G3 Guidelines have, since their launch in 2006, provided the means for companies to publicly disclose their sustainability performance, including on human rights issues – information that is increasingly demanded by investors, consumers, employees and other stakeholders.