“Business and Human Rights” and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Complementary or Conflicting Agendas

The publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) was a watershed moment in the business and human rights (BHR) debate, a scholarly and policy discussion that has boomed over the last two decades. In parallel, the United Nations General Assembly issued its Agenda 2030, featuring 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the end of 2030. Both, the UNGPs and the Agenda 2030, are instruments designed to advance corporate sustainability at an international level. Yet, despite their apparent complementarities and potential synergies, the connection between the two remains loose and therefore ambiguous. The disconnect is exacerbated by how the Agenda 2030 frames the role and contributions of the business sector, which holds strong parallelisms with the traditional notion of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). However, adopting a “CSR” approach to SDG implementation obstructs the integration of the UNGPs and hinders Agenda 2030 from taking advantage of the progress made in BHR over the last two decades and thus to realize their full potential in charting a holistic path of sustainability of business actors.