Quick Take

How the UN Forum for Business and Human Rights Could More Effectively Advance Human Rights in Business

December 1, 2025

Last week, the United Nations hosted its 14^th Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva. The meeting was both energizing and thought-provoking, but at the same time a sobering reminder of massive gaps in corporate engagement on these issues and the need for a rethinking of the focus of the Forum itself.

This meeting took place at a time when there has been a dramatic assault on democratic norms by many governments. The US, a longstanding supporter of this agenda, has reversed course, taking a massive step backward and withdrawing key funding both to intergovernmental organizations like the UN and to frontline human rights activists. Set against this sobering backdrop, more than 4,000 people made their way to Geneva, perhaps mostly to reconnect with allies still dedicated to this agenda. The significant turnout was even more impressive given the fact that the meeting was awkwardly scheduled during the Thanksgiving week in the US, causing many participants to leave after the second day. This unfortunate scheduling needs to be addressed in the future.

In the days following the meeting, my social media feed has been filled with reflections from colleagues who emphasized how important it was to come together, reconnect, and feel part of a community that continues to push hard for progress—especially at a moment when global developments often seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

At the same time, these reflections highlight a recurring reality: for many, the formal program of the UN Forum has become less and less compelling or relevant. What brings so many people to Geneva are occasionally interesting side events, but mostly bilateral meetings, and informal conversations with friends and colleagues.

If an initial objective of the Forum was to engage with a growing number of businesses working to address these challenges, the Forum is failing to meet that objective. Though a relatively small cadre of dedicated business representatives do still attend the Forum, their numbers are not growing and there is an insufficient effort to engage with them or challenge them in a meaningful way.

In a moment when resources are limited and the urgency of the issues continues to grow, the Forum needs to evolve both in its format and content to better meet the current need.

Here are three key areas where the Forum needs to be strengthened:

1. A clearer focus on fewer, high-risk and high-impact topics

Rather than allowing countless discussions to run in parallel, the Forum should concentrate on a small number of priority issues. The goal: do less, but do it better.
While this approach cannot cover the full breadth of global human rights challenges, it would make the Forum a venue where cutting edge issues are seriously debated, and discussions can drive meaningful change.
These priority issues should be concrete and industry-specific, such as:

How can the informal mining of critical battery minerals be integrated into formal supply chains?
How can the apparel industry establish and sustain living wages?
How can businesses better protect the rights of migrant workers in agricultural sectors?
How should technology firms and governments address harmful on-line content?

2. Sessions with a clear purpose: diagnostics, solutions, and scaling

Sessions should openly examine the real-world challenges of implementing human rights commitments. While it is important to highlight corporate success stories, these stories should serve to draw attention to the challenges tied to scaling these efforts throughout each industry.
Each session should have a defined purpose, and the sessions should be tied together:

Diagnostic sessions to describe the problems and obstacles;
Solution-focused sessions to showcase what is already working in practice;
Scaling sessions to explore how proven solutions can be expanded, replicated, and measured over time.

3. Stronger emphasis on developing and tracking solutions

Too many sessions at the Forum focus on broad aspirational frameworks, especially the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. While the UNGPs served a useful purpose in bringing more companies to the table 14 years ago, looking to the future, the Forum needs to embrace a more ambitious approach, one that is rooted in measuring corporate performance against industry-specific substantive human rights standards. The UN Working Group that directs this meeting should take responsibility for producing annual progress reports on the solutions that are being discussed. Tracking progress year over year will create a clear sense of accountability and help ensure that discussions translate into action.

In all of these sessions, businesses must be an essential actor. It is not meaningful to discuss the business and human rights agenda without the direct involvement of business leaders themselves. The challenge—and the opportunity going forward —is to engage companies in stakeholder conversations that are genuinely solutions-focused. The format of the UN Forum can play an essential role here: allowing a candid discussion of the challenges, but then fostering constructive, collaborative dialogue. Prioritizing the latter is key to advancing this field in a way that delivers real impact.

Business & Human Rights Leadership