ABSTRACT

States and international organizations are promoting policies and rules aimed at ‘humanizing’ public procurement in order to direct their enormous economic potential toward protecting human rights. This paper explores the recent practice in this field with the aim of analysing what standards have been elaborated thus far. Given the absence of a consistent approach concerning socially responsible procedures, the author suggests that the future legally binding instrument on business and human rights offers an opportunity to fill the gap by drafting a human rights provision to be inserted into public procurement regimes.