What Are Human Rights?
According to the United Nations human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and more.
How Does Human Rights Appear In Proxy Voting?
Human Rights topics include forced labor in the supply chain, freedom of expression, and the right to unionize. Many shareholders ask corporations to integrate human rights due diligence into corporate governance.
Recent Examples Of Human Rights
- Report on Impact of Facial Recognition Technology on Civil Rights – This proposal at Amazon asked the company to address how its facial analysis products enable discrimination (5/22).
- Child Labor Audit – This proposal at Exelon asks management to review the child labor risks that come with the mining of the cobalt material (4/22).
Shareholder Impact On Human Rights
Over one third of Disney shareholders voted for a Human Rights Due Diligence Report. This would allow shareholders to better evaluate business and reputational risks inherent in cooperation with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes that violate human rights (3/22).
