Civil Society Dialogue on the occasion of second Annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights

The Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) are pleased to announce their collaboration in hosting the Civil Society Dialogue on the occasion of the Second Annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, from 2-4 December in Geneva.

This Dialogue will take place on 2 December, 2013 in the United Nations Palais de Nations in Geneva from 15:00 to 18:00 CET. The Dialogue is intended to provide an opportunity for civil society participants to identify key trends, needs and challenges for the effective realisation of the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and effective access to remedy for victims in the context of business activities. Second, it is intended to identify strategies to harness and communicate civil society perspectives in the specific panels organized during the Second Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights.

Online survey to provide input for Dialogue

In order to facilitate a constructive civil society dialogue, a special survey is designed for civil society participants to capture trends, needs and challenges for the effective realization of the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and effective access to remedy for victims. The results of this survey will provide input in the most pressing issues for civil society participants, and be used to kick-off and guide strategy discussion during the Forum Dialogue. The survey will also clarify which specific Forum panels each participant will attend, in the hopes of helping set shared strategy to ensure civil society perspectives are present and communicated in each panel of the Second Annual Forum.

You are kindly requested to fill out the English(opens in new window) or Spanish survey(opens in new window) before 20 November 2013. All organisations and individuals from civil society are invited to complete the online survey and feed into the dialogue, whether they will attend the Forum Dialogue or not.

A link to the full concept note for the Civil Society Dialogue is available here(opens in new window) .

For more information, please contact Mariëtte van Huijstee at m.van.huijstee[at]somo.nl