The Programme for the 6th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights is ready!

The Programme for the 6th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights with the speakers and the panel discussions' themes, is ready to be consulted. The Forum takes place once per year, and it will be in Geneva, Switzerland, from 27th November to 29th November 2017. The full programme and their participants can be consulted here. This is a good manner to overview the themes that will be addressed during the annual meeting as well as their participants. The main topic this year is based on the Third Pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: the Access to Remedy. There is a great expectation placed in this Forum since it is a unique space that gathers all the actors that participate in this issue: victims of human rights violations and their representatives together with civil society, institutions and government representatives, as well as business groups.

The Working Group on Business and Human Rights chairs the Forum and it is organised by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. This Working Group was established in 2011 after the unanimously endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by the Human Rights Council. Following points 12 and 13 from the Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/RES/17/4, the Forum on Business and Human Rights is a space created with two main purposes. First, to be the space where the trends and challenges in the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles are discussed. Second, to unify in the same place all the stakeholders involved in these issues and "other non-governmental organisations whose aims and purposes are in conformity with the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations". Bearing in mind last week's third session about a binding international treaty for companies in relation to the protection of human rights, the role of the victims in this discussion will undoubtedly be placed at the center of all issues.