30/09/2025
The Investor Initiative on Human Rights Data (II-HRD), today published guidance for data providers on assessing companies in relation to breaches of international human rights norms (‘norms breach’). The II-HRD is a collaboration between investors who manage assets of over $9 trillion, and was established in 2024 to improve the quality of corporate human rights data available to all investors.
“Investors use ‘norms breach’ data to inform engagement, voting actions, fund development, and company exclusion analysis. Data providers are the main sources for this information, but they are as likely to disagree than agree when assessing a company in relation to an alleged norms breach,” said Dan Neale, Social Lead at the Church Commissioners for England, and Coordinator for the II-HRD norms breach work. “We hope this guidance helps to address some of the confusion.”
This inaugural publication by the II-HRD sets out 21 research principles for assessing companies in relation to international human rights norms like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, with the aim of bringing clarity to a field marked by a wide range of different methodologies – and outputs.
The principles do not seek to dictate methodologies to the data providers but rather to help improve their current products, enabling investors to meet their own responsibilities in relation to human rights due diligence, stewardship, and fiduciary decision making.
Although developed primarily for engaging with data providers, the principles may also help investors carry out their own assessments of companies, and support broader stakeholder understanding of sustainability-related provisions, such as Principle Adverse Impact indicators and Minimum Safeguards.
The principles were developed by the II-HRD with extensive input from international business and human rights experts. The II-HRD will use the guidance to inform its continued engagements with data providers to improve the quality and breadth of data available to the market.
Read the guidance in full here.
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