Handbook on Human Rights Impact Assessment

Reviews / Votes

'Setting the tone for what is to date one of the most comprehensive publications on Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA), Goetzmann provides not only the focus of the Handbook on Human Rights Impact Assessment but also the primary lens through which the book should be read and appraised. Like every good book, the Handbook has left us with more questions than answers.' -- Adebayo Majekolage, Business and Human Rights Journal 'Goetzmann singlehandedly brings together an impressive array of high calibre authors to provide readers with a comprehensive Handbook on the topic of human rights impact assessment. With coverage across a variety of sectors, cases, issues, and dilemmas, the volume also offers insights and ideas for forging new pathways towards human rights enjoyment in a complex and contested world.'
--Deanna Kemp, Professor and Director, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia 'The global community today faces a number of challenges and opportunities that bring with them threats to human rights. From intensive infrastructure delivery to natural resource exploitation, from climate change to mass migration, human rights are closely intertwined with environmental and political concerns. This Handbook offers clear-headed, expert advice on how human rights cannot only be considered in these developments but how they can be placed at the centre. The Handbook details leading methods, asserts the importance of diverse perspectives, considers varied socio-cultural contexts, and argues strongly for an interlinkage between project-based assessments and the broader business and human rights sphere. In so doing, the contributors deliver an essential resource for impact assessment practitioners, corporate, civil society and government representatives seeking to improve the consideration and protection of human rights.'
--Sara Bice, President (2018-2019) International Association for Impact Assessment, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Australia 'The duty to prepare human rights impact assessments has been, until now, honoured more in the breach than in the observance. This is due both to the lack of political will or good faith and to the complexity of the method. This impressive Handbook answers at least half of the equation: it shall now be for policy-makers and businesses to pick up the gauntlet.'
--Olivier De Schutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2008-2014) and Member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 'With a record number of shareholder resolutions filed on human rights due diligence in the 2019 proxy season, investors are increasingly asking companies to disclose how they identify and assess the real and potential adverse human rights impacts of their activities and business relationships. This Handbook provides valuable guidance for investors on a range of factors to consider when engaging companies on HRIAs, including how to ensure meaningful participation of rights-holders; relevant standards and frameworks to foster accountability; and what adequate disclosure of HRIA processes and findings should look like.' -- Paloma Munoz Quick, Director, Investor Alliance for Human Rights 'If companies are to meet their responsibility to respect human rights, they need a clear understanding of what their impacts on people's human rights are or could be. The practice of human rights impact assessment is still a developing field, and the sharing of methodologies, insights, successes and challenges is central to its advancement and consolidation. This Handbook offers both practitioners of impact assessment and all of us with an interest in advancing business respect for human rights, an invaluable resource. I challenge anyone not to find fresh ideas, reflections and inspiration in its pages.' -- Caroline Rees, President and Co-Founder, Shift, US 'An important book for those who want to understand the process of translating corporate human rights due diligence into practical action, and ultimately results for the people affected by company decisions. An essential read for everyone working at the nexus of business and human rights.' -- Ida Hyllested, Child Rights and Business Specialist at UNICEF