Raising some doubts about the effectiveness of European Commission practical guide for employment and recruitment agencies implementing the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights

The European Commission issued, on June 17, 2013, three practical guides, for employment and recruitment agencies, oil and gas companies, information and communication technologies sector, which intend to help companies to insert the corporate responsibility to respect human rights as set out by the UNGPs into their company culture, offering advice how to respect human rights in practice in everyday operations, through relevant examples and providing companies with additional information on those issues. The guides identify a number of human rights risk areas and set practical steps for companies to manage those risks, stressing the financial and legal costs of failing to do so. However, some doubts concerning their electiveness should be raised namely regarding the lack of their binding nature, their scope of application on several issues, and key concepts not clearly defined. This communication will argue that an important step was taken by the European Commission issuing those three guides, but their full effectiveness is doubtful and other measures should be implemented.