“Business and human rights is now a permanent, if somewhat, nascent fixture of European public policy. It first came to prominence under the Swedish Presidency of the European Union in 2009 and was the focus of the Danish EU Presidency Conference of 7-8 May 2012. Much has happened in the intervening three years. The main achievement has been the consensus adoption of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights … by the United Nations Human Rights Council, in June 2011.
The challenge now is for the European Union, its Member States, and its partners in other regions of the world, to move from ‘policy to practice’. The Danish Presidency Conference focused on a fundamental part of this challenge: the role of the state in protecting human rights in relation to the activities of business (with particular emphasis on promoting business’s respect for human rights through due diligence and access to remedy).” Full report available here: Danish EU Presidency Conference Report 2012