Human Rights, Labor, and Environmental Organizations Reject Proposal to Create an ISO Technical Committee for Social Responsibility

August 31, 2017

ICAR, ALSTEAN-Burma, the Center for International Environmental Law, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, International Labor Rights Forum, Investors Against Genocide, PODER, and Shift submitted a letter to oppose a proposal to establish a Technical Committee on Social Responsibility by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO").

The proposed Technical Committee on Social Responsibility focuses on developing ISO deliverables in areas such as human rights and labor practices, and creating potential standards for human rights and labor practices based on a compliance and audit based management systems approach. The letter argues that creating such a voluntary management system standard would undermine already agreed upon international standards and would not be seen as credible or legitimate by stakeholders. It further argues that any private human rights standards developed by the ISO will be redundant and potentially detrimental.

The letter can be downloaded here.