Corporate accountability
Under the United Nations Framework for Business and Human Rights, all businesses have a responsibility to respect, protect and remedy the human rights of individuals and communities impacted by their operations.
Oxfam has created a range of tools to support women and men who are working to hold companies to account, as well as resources to provide companies with guidance on best policy and practice.
Checking up on labour rights
This tool is designed to help companies, particularly international companies, assess their current policies and practices in relation to workers rights. The tool summarises important aspects of responsible labour policies and also highlights significant risks which may need to be addressed.
Download the Checking up on labour rights tool
The Factory Floor Guide to Corporate Accountability
This publication is a guide for workers who are employed within the supply chains of global companies and experience a violation of their workplace rights. It provides a range of international advocacy resources, strategies and approaches to help workers and their organisations seek a resolution for labour rights disputes and to hold companies to account.
Download The Factory Floor Guide to Corporate Accountability (PDF 4 MB)
Guide to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
The FPIC guide is designed to support communities impacted by large-scale development projects including mines, dams, highways, plantations and logging. It explains the rights of local communities to participate in decision making around large-scale developments that may impact their lives and provides guidance to communities about how to access and protect those rights.
Community Consent Index
The Community Consent Index provides a sample of position statements on community rights by 28 major oil, gas and mining companies.
Download the Community Consent Index
Community-company grievance resolution: A guide for the Australian mining industry
This publication describes the role effective grievance mechanisms can play in dealing with human rights challenges and establishing and maintaining good corporate-community relationships.
Download the Community-company grievance resolution
Women, communities and mining: The gender impacts of mining and the role of gender impact assessment
This report informs mining company staff of the potential gender impacts of mining projects and introduces some tools and approaches that they can use to conduct a gender impact assessment of these projects.
Download Women, communities and mining
Business Briefings
These briefings provide practical advice for companies, especially those selling and producing commodities on a global scale, about how to protect human rights across their operations.
- Gender equality: It’s your business
- Better jobs in better supply chains
- Think big, go small: Adapting business models to incorporate smallholders into supply chains
- Climate change risks and supply chain responsibility
International frameworks for business and human rights
United Nations Guiding principles on business and human rights
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
See also:
The OECD Watch brochure: The OECD Guidelines for Multinational enterprises, a tool for responsible business conduct
This provides an overview of the content of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and guidance on how to use the complaint mechanism.
Download the OECD Watch brochure
OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas
The Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas provides recommendations to help companies to respect human rights and avoid contributing to conflict through their mineral or metal purchasing decisions and practices.
Gold Supplement to the OECD Due Diligence Guidance
The Gold Supplement tackles the unique challenges for carrying out due diligence on the complex supply chain of gold, depending on whether it is used for investment purposes, jewellery or in some other industrial product.
Ethical Investment
Better Returns in a Better World: Responsible investment – overcoming the barriers and seeing the returns
This paper outlines elements of Oxfam’s work with the investment community on their role in contributing to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
Download Better Returns in a Better World
Sustainable project financing: getting the basics right
This publication provides investors with a snapshot of an effective due diligence risk framework. It includes an assessment of global challenges for investors and the key risks to be assessed and disclose on.
