Opening Plenary - Forum on Business and Human…

11:40am – 13:00pm Opening Plenary - Forum on Business and Human Rights 2022 The annual Forum on Business and Human Rights is the UN's platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue to assess the progress made by states and businesses in moving the three pillars to "Protect, Respect and Remedy" of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) from paper to practice, identify challenges and salient issues and discuss what's needed to address them adequately. The plenary of the UN Forum, titled "People and the planet at the centre of advancing business accountability in the next decade", will provide different stakeholders' perspectives on the main theme of the Forum: Strengthening accountability to advance business respect for people and the planet in the next decade. Among other objectives, the opening plenary seeks to provide inspiration and help set the tone for constructive and solution-oriented dialogue over subsequent discussions. A key goal is to provide a global platform for stakeholders' dialogue on how to enhance accountability and remedy mechanisms for business-related human rights abuses, accelerate the pace of implementation by States and businesses, and incentivize the participation of other actors in alignment with the recommendations from the UNGPs 10+ roadmap. The plenary aims to reinforce the message that rights holders must be at the centre of any meaningful initiative to secure accountability and access to remedy in order to focus on the effective implementation of the UNGPs.