Specific themes

In 1976, the OECD adopted the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which contain recommendations on corporate responsibility in areas such as labour relations, human rights, the environment, taxation, the fight against corruption and consumer interests. The OECD guideline was revised in 2023, ensuring that it is more responsive to contemporary human, environmental and societal challenges. In this context, it was also decided that each OECD country would establish a National Contact Point (NCP), which would promote the application of the guidelines and play a mediating role as an individual complaints mechanism. The Federal Public Service Economy, SMEs, Self-employed and Energy chairs and provides the secretariat of the Belgian NCP, which is made up of representatives of the federal and regional authorities, representatives of three representative employers' organisations and three interprofessional employees' organisations.

In 1977, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted the Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy.

Within the United Nations, the discussion gained momentum in the mid-2000s. This resulted in 31 guidelines on business and human rights, which the Human Rights Council adopted in 2011. For Belgium, these UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) form one of the fundamental pillars of human rights protection in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In implementation of the UNGP, the Human Rights Council set up a UN Working Group on business and human rights. This working group monitors the application of the guidelines and launched the idea of National Action Plans (NAPs).

Belgium adopted its first National Action Plan (NAP) Business and Human Rights in July 2017. This NAP provided tools for both the Belgian government and Belgian companies in Belgium or abroad, to get started on corporate social responsibility based on the actions formulated. The UN Working Group called for a review of already existing NAPs in 2022, a decade after the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles.

Belgium answered this call and launched a revision procedure of the firs NAP. Belgium’s second NAP was approved by the federal Council of Ministers on 5 April 2024. The development of the second NAP went through several stages during which the competent federal and federated entities worked on a draft. Stakeholders were consulted at various points during the process. The information related to the creation of the NAP, can be found in detail on the website of the Federal Institute for Sustainable Development (FISD).

The second National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights runs from 2024 to 2029 and contains 67 actions divided into 16 chapters.

The implementation of these actions, which are the joint responsibility of the federal actors and the actors of the federated entities, is evaluated annually by the Working Group on Social Responsibility within the Interdepartmental Commission on Sustainable Development.

In the context of the first NAP, various resources were developed to provide interested individuals and organisations with additional explanations on how human rights can be integrated into the functioning of businesses and organisations.

Those include:

• a Human Rights Toolbox, which provides a range of user-friendly tools to guide businesses and organisations and their stakeholders in implementing human rights obligations;
• a Brochure on Access to Remedies in Belgium, which contains the main remedies for victims of human rights violations in Belgium.

There is a growing tendency to organise international corporate social responsibility through multi-stakeholder initiatives. These initiatives often take the form of so-called covenants in which businesses, governments, trade unions and civil society work together to prevent abuses, such as human rights violations, animal suffering or environmental pollution.

Examples of such covenants include:

• Beyond Chocolate is a joint initiative in which the Belgian government, the Belgian chocolate and retail sector, civil society, social impact investors and universities have undertaken to tackle child labour, combat deforestation and give local cocoa producers a viable income.
• Trustone is a joint initiative of the Flemish and Dutch natural stone sector with the Flemish and Dutch government, NGOs, and trade unions, in which agreements are made for more responsible production and purchases of natural stone.

For its part, the EU has adopted regulations to ensure that European companies do not contribute (indirectly) to human rights or environmental violations. EU legislation provides due diligence obligations for various sectors, such as for importers of timber and certain minerals from conflict zones (EU regulation to minimise EU-caused deforestation and forest degradation, and the regulation on conflict minerals), and the regulation banning the products manufactured by forced labour from the EU market, through which the EU is committed to combating forced labour in global supply chains. The EU has also implemented new environmental and social criteria in its public procurement regulations.

Additionally, Directive 2014/95 on non-financial reporting requires large companies to provide specific information on how they operate and address social and environmental challenges. This helps investors, consumers, policymakers and other stakeholders to assess the non-financial performance of large companies and encourages corporate social responsibility.

On top of that, the EU has adopted a Regulation on conflict minerals, which ensures that EU companies only import certain minerals and metals from responsible sources that do not use their profits to finance armed conflict.

With the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, the EU has adopted legislation to promote corporate social responsibility for companies in their global value chain. Through this legislation, companies will identify and remedy the negative human rights and environmental impacts their activities may cause.

With the action plan on sustainable financing, the European Commission aimed to adopt a package of measures to facilitate sustainable investments. This package will introduce disclosure requirements on how investors and asset managers take environmental, social and governance factors into account.

In the meantime, at the initiative of Ecuador and South Africa, an intergovernmental working group (IGWG on TNCs) has been set up within the United Nations to consider the elaboration of a legally binding instrument, i.e. a treaty, on business and human rights.