In accordance with our mission, MSI Integrity seeks to understand the impact and value of voluntary initiatives that address business and human rights by facilitating research and sharing learning regarding the design and human rights impact of these initiatives. Our research projects strive to advance MSIs’ capability to protect and promote human rights, and to understand the impact of MSIs from a human rights perspective. We are particularly interested in how initiatives include, empower, and impact affected communities.
We offer a body of knowledge regarding good practices as an independent resource for MSIs and stakeholders. Many MSIs or their members do not have the capacity or resources to analyze how initiatives in other sectors operate, and MSI Integrity provides opportunities to share learning across industry sectors and between rights-based approaches.
MSI Integrity regularly provides expertise to MSIs or stakeholders seeking to understand good practices to protect human rights. We strive for engagement and reflexive consultation with all stakeholders. Any MSI or stakeholder can contact us with general questions, or to suggest specific research projects for consideration.
Current and Upcoming Projects
MSI Integrity has initiated a research project to identify and map standard-setting MSIs in an open and accessible database. This will be the first global mapping of MSIs operating in the fields of business and human rights and environmental sustainability. MSI Integrity will continue our commitment to transparency and accessibility by posting comprehensive identifying characteristics of existing MSIs openly on the project website. This project is being conducted with pro bono support from the law firm Miller & Chevalier in Washington, DC and in collaboration with the Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
Suggestions from MSIs or Stakeholders are Encouraged
We strive for engagement and reflexive consultation with all stakeholders. We encourage any MSI, or stakeholder within a MSI, to contact us to suggest research projects. Potential topics could range from analyzing a specific aspect of an MSI that is considered particularly innovative and worthy of examination for a “Good Practice” case note, through to examining a particular aspect of an MSI that has proved challenging. All projects will be guided by our commitment to independence, transparency, and human rights principles.