Governments must resist the temptation to sacrifice human rights standards as they try to recover from the current economic downturn, an expert from the United Nations said Tuesday. "Human rights are most at risk in times of crisis, and economic crises pose a particular risk to economic and social rights," UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights John Ruggie told the Human Rights Council.
"Any gains governments believe can be had by lowering human rights standards for businesses are illusory, and no sustainable recovery can be built on so flimsy a foundation," he added. Ruggie told the Human Rights Council that the same failures in governance that led to the current crisis formed the "permissive environment" that allows for human rights violations in the corporate world.
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