The Project

Banks and Human Rights: The Issue

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) stipulate that all business enterprises should respect human rights. Based on these principles, banks are expected to respect human rights. Human rights are defined following the International Bill of Human Rights consisting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other key instruments: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the eight ILO core conventions as set out in the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Depending on the circumstances the UNGP recommend referring to specific treaties meant to protect the rights of specific vulnerable groups such as indigenous peoples; women; minorities; children; persons with disabilities, or migrants. 

How good are banks at respecting human rights? The Banking on Human Rights project ranks banks according to their involvement in human rights abuses. Our ranks are based on publicly available evidence and show how hundreds of banks have performed over the period 2000-2015.

Useful resources on banks and human rights: 

• Business and Human Rights Resource Center the only global business and human rights knowledge hub, delivering up-to-date and comprehensive news in eight languages. We receive over 365,000 page views on our site every month.
• Equator Principles, a risk management framework, adopted by financial institutions, for determini, ng, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in projects and is primarily intended to provide a minimum standard for due diligence and monitoring to support responsible risk decision-making. 
• OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises operating in or from adhering countries. Chapter IV of the Guidelines focuses on human rights. 
• BankTrack, the international tracking, campaigning and CSO support organisation targeting private sector commercial banks (‘banks’) and the activities they finance. 
• OHCHR response to BankTrack on the application of the UNGP to the banking sector.

If you want to know more on the topic: 

• Equator Principles’ impacts on human rights-related lending policies and practices (Christopher Wright, 2012)
• The Compliance to Human Rights in Business Sector: Focusing on Banks (Marta Bordignon, 2013)
• Banks and Human Rights (from Teaching Business and Human Rights).
• Thun Group releases discussion paper on banks’ human rights responsibilities (see also this 2019 update).
• Why central banks need to take human rights more seriously (The Conversation).
• Banks still only pay lip service to the UN Guiding Principles, with dire consequences (Reuters).
• EU bank supports projects linked to human rights violations, NGOs claim (The Guardian).
• Banks and human rights due diligence (Damiano De Felice, 2015).
• Human Rights Watch on IMF and World Bank.

The Banking on Human Rights Project’s Global Map