1. The issue of business and human rights became permanently implanted on the global policy agenda in the 1990s, reflecting the dramatic worldwide expansion of the private sector at the time, coupled with a corresponding rise in transnational economic activity. These developments heightened social awareness of businesses’ impact on human rights and also attracted the attention of the United Nations.

2. One early United Nations-based initiative was called the Norms on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises; it was drafted by an expert subsidiary body of what was then the Commission on Human Rights. Essentially, this sought to impose on companies, directly under international law, the same range of human rights duties that States have accepted for themselves under treaties they have ratified: “to promote, secure the fulfilment of, respect, ensure respect of and protect human rights”.