ABSTRACT
Author writing this article a few days after returning from the eighth UN Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, held every November in the Palais des Nations, the home of the United Nations in Geneva. A fitting time to reflect on the legacy of the Amnesty International UK Business Group and Sir Geoffrey Chandler and to review the evolution of the field of business and human rights since Sir Geoffrey wrote his 2009 “Turning Point” article that was published in The Journal of Corporate Citizenship. Hosted by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, the forum provides an annual “stocktaking” of the global human rights dialogue between business, civil society and government, and in 2019, some 2400 participants took part in over 60 formal sessions. The prevalence of “mutual ignorance, prejudice, suspicion and hostility” that Sir Geoffrey used to characterize the relationships between companies and human rights NGOs in the early 1990s has been much tempered.
