Debevoise & Plimpton LLP has launched an inaugural regional update to its landmark “UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights at 10 – The Impact of the UNGPs on Courts and Judicial Mechanisms” report. The update reviews how judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms in eight African countries have considered the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“UNGPs”) and other similar international instruments between January 2021 and July 2024.

The original report (published in 2021 – see detail here) marked ten years since the adoption of the UNGPs by the UN Human Rights Council. Commissioned by the United Nations Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, and presented to the UN Human Rights Council, it explored the use of the UNGPs by judicial and quasi-judicial bodies in more than 50 national, regional and international jurisdictions around the world.

The Africa update – the first of a rolling series of regional updates – was launched at the UN Business & Human Rights forum in Geneva.

The full update can be accessed here.

The lead authors from Debevoise on the update are partner Samantha Rowe, senior advisor Deborah Enix-Ross, ESG senior advisor Ulysses Smith, and associates Isabelle Glimcher, Duncan Pickard, Fabienne El-Cid, Emma Macfarlane, Katelyn Masket, Alexandra McDevitt, Kaitlyn McGill, Allison Perlin, Jane Tien, and Caroline Wallace. The Debevoise team was supported by colleagues at law firms in each of the surveyed jurisdictions (full list on page 6 of the report).