Human rights introductory awareness video - English

Summary

The video introduces human rights and explains what they mean for energy companies and their employees. Ipieca says that respecting human rights is a core value: companies should work to prevent and mitigate harm, and provide or support remedies when their actions have caused or contributed to negative impacts.

Human rights belong to everyone, regardless of nationality, residence, identity, ethnicity, religion, language, or other status. Examples include the rights to life, health, education, water and sanitation, fair working conditions, freedom of association, equality before the law, and participation in public and cultural life. These rights are set out in international human rights instruments and reflected in the laws of many countries. International standards also recognize the specific needs of vulnerable and marginalized people.

The energy sector can bring benefits, but its activities—from extraction through processing and sales—can also create risks for workers, communities, and the environment, including through supply chains. Launched in 2011, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set out the respective roles of governments and businesses: governments have a duty to protect human rights through laws and their enforcement, while businesses should respect human rights in their operations and business relationships.

Human Rights Due Diligence

The video describes the following actions as human rights due diligence:

• Identify potential impacts: Check whether company activities, including those in supply chains, could negatively affect workers’ or communities’ rights.
• Determine which rights may be affected: Consider how company decisions and activities could affect people.
• Prevent and mitigate harm: Take action to avoid negative impacts or reduce them where they cannot be avoided.
• Provide or support remedies: Where company actions have caused or contributed to harm, provide or support appropriate remedies.
• Enable people to raise concerns: Provide ways for workers—including contracted workers—and communities to express concerns about possible impacts.

Examples of Human Rights Impacts

• For communities: Reduced access to fresh water, involuntary resettlement, harm to livelihoods or health, misuse of force, and damage to Indigenous communities’ ways of life.
• For workers: Child or forced labor, deceptive or discriminatory recruitment, unfair working conditions, and discrimination.

Companies may affect rights directly—for example, through discriminatory recruitment, competing with communities for fresh water, or inadequate health and safety protections. They may also be linked to impacts through business relationships, such as suppliers imposing excessive unpaid overtime or security contractors disregarding community rights.

What Companies Can Do

The video suggests that companies can make respect for human rights part of ordinary business practice by:

• Including a commitment to respect human rights in company policies, codes of conduct, and standards for business relationships.
• Considering human rights when making business decisions.
• Assessing and mitigating human rights impacts for new projects.
• Conducting due diligence in existing operations and supply chains to understand where the greatest risks are.
• Checking whether actions to respect human rights are effective.
• Providing channels, such as grievance mechanisms, for people to raise concerns.
• Reporting publicly on human rights performance.

What Employees Can Do—and Why It Matters

Employees can raise concerns when they notice an actual or potential negative impact, or are worried about how company activity may affect others. The video says many companies offer confidential channels, including human resources, legal, health, safety and environment, and ethics and compliance teams.

Respecting human rights is presented as both the right thing to do and good for business. It supports people’s dignity and can help companies build respectful, productive workplaces, strengthen their reputations, attract talent, and improve supply-chain security.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Speaker: An unnamed narrator provides the video’s voice-over; no individual speaker is identified.
• Organizations and standards referenced: Ipieca; the United Nations and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; the International Labour Organization; and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.