Finland

3. Expectations towards companies and support services [page 23]

The central objective of the UN principles is to promote companies’ voluntary commitment to following international human rights norms. Human rights are universally recognised, which means that following them in business activities does not depend on the ability and/or willingness of states to meet their human rights obligations. On the other hand, this does not decrease the importance of state obligations, since states are expected to follow international conventions. However, as stated before, the operation of states in implementing human rights conventions varies on an international level. If the national laws and the legislative acts of the company’s target country are in conflict with internationally recognised human rights, the company should find ways to respect human rights. However, companies are not expected to violate the national legislation of the target country.

The Finnish state is committed to promoting the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Although following the guidelines is voluntary for companies, the Finnish government expects companies to observe them. Companies’ obligation to respect human rights includes various actions to proactively mitigate the risk of human rights violations. This may be done for instance by including a human rights assessment in the company’s risk management system or by carrying out various special measures.

A careful human rights risk assessment and careful prevention has favourable long-term effects on the company’s own business activities.