Companies impact people’s lives, since most of the time of their working life they are on the installations and even more so if there are people working in multinational companies. It is clear that companies benefit society in the sense of providing employment opportunities and generating technological advances, but they can also have a negative effect if the rights of employees and the community are analyzed.
Respect for human rights and how companies are held accountable is a topic of debate worldwide, so companies are increasingly aware of their responsibility to exercise and respect human rights.
The Council of Europe developed an online course on this topic, called Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP). This course was first launched in 2015 and was updated in July of this year. The latest update was developed by experts in the field and representatives of the Council of Europe and representatives of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Funded by the Dutch and German authorities.
HELP addresses issues of legal frameworks, methodologies, and practical tips on how states, companies, workers, and legal professionals can prevent and remedy business-related human rights abuses.
The course consists of 4 modules and has an approximate learning time of 6 hours.
- Module 0: Introduction.
This module consists of a welcome message, instructions, authors and target group of the course. - Module 1: Overview of business and human rights.
Here you will learn about the context and key concepts. - Module 2: Prevention of harm: State duties to protect and prevent.
You will learn about state duties, new approaches, policy coherence, etc. - Module 3: Prevention of harm: corporate responsibility to respect.
In this module you will learn how to create and incorporate a culture of respect for rights, and how to be a mediator between the parties concerned. - Module 4: Defense of rights and reparation of damages
Finally, you will learn about the importance of damage reparation.
To take the course you must open an account on the HELP platform and then access the online course directly. Once the course is completed, a HELP log statement is optionally generated in digital format so that the user can print it.
