Human rights

Human rights are basic rights for individuals.They form the foundations for freedom, justice and peace. They apply equally and universally in all countries, irrespective of the legal framework. As a global business, Barclays has a clear responsibility to support governments and civil society groups in respecting and upholding human rights.

Our governance

We aim to always operate in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as other international standards, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and International Labour Organization Core Conventions.

Barclays Statement on Human Rights outlines the issue's relevance to our employment policies and practices, our supply chain screening and management and the responsible use of our products and services.

Working with member organisations

We helped to develop the business and human rights agenda through our membership in key organisations:

• The Equality and Human Rights Commission Human Rights and Business Working Group, which is reviewing the implications of human rights and the UN Human Rights Council Report: Protect, Respect and Remedy framework
• The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), for whom we chair the human rights workstream, and participate on the steering committee
• The Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR) concluded in March 2009. We continue to use learnings from this initiative to guide our policies and practices.

Human rights training

We provide internal guidance for lending and relationship managers to include advice on how to integrate human rights issues into their assessment of financial transactions. Using the online human rights guidance tool which we helped to develop in conjunction with other financial institutions participating in the UNEP FI human rights workstream, we provide guidance on:

• Identifying potential human rights risk in lending and investing
• Assessing the materiality of the risk
• Identifying possible risk mitigation opportunities.

As well as providing guidance for other businesses, we have embedded this information into guidance tools for our employees in the area of environmental risk.