Nora Götzmann – showing respect for human rights in state-investor contracts: guidance and assessment tool for company negotiators

This post was contributed by Nora Götzmann, Advisor in the Human Rights and Business Department of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and Adjunct Fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, University of Queensland Respect for human rights, as envisaged by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, requires companies to exercise human rights due diligence across the project life-cycle. This includes early business development and contracting between a company and a host-state for an investment project (often called ‘host-government agreements’ or ‘state-investor contracts’).