Human Rights Training

Sr. Vice President and General Counsel, Brackett Denniston, advises in the video:

It’s hard to imagine GE leaders in the 21^st century not having a strong appreciation for human rights. As a GE leader in the 21^st century, GE expects you to:

• Know what human rights are; understand their importance to GE; and help in assuring that our business partners also respect human rights.
• You should understand ways in which your business products, practices and growth plans can encounter human rights issues.
• You must also appreciate implications to your business—both legal and reputational—of a failure to respect human rights.
• We want you to lead by respecting the dignity of all individuals you come in contact with in your work.
• Finally, you should promote a culture of reporting human rights risks or deprivations as you encounter them in your work.

Brackett notes that respecting human rights is in GE’s business interest, particularly as we grow in emerging markets. Managers are also provided with a historical context that serves as a backdrop for Brackett’s call to action.

Bob Corcoran, Vice President for Citizenship, provides this historical context as follows:

Fundamental to being a good global citizen is respecting human rights. While GE has a long history of support for human rights, as captured by our Spirit and Letter Policies, our specific focus on human rights continues as a journey that began first in 2006. It was at that time—as we envisioned substantial growth in emerging markets—that we decided to get ahead of human rights issues we would no doubt encounter in these markets. So in 2006, GE joined the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights to understand human rights in the context of business.

The next guidepost on this journey came in 2007 when we adopted a Statement of Principles on Human Rights and declared GE’s support for the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Next, in 2008, we joined the UN Global Compact, whose ten principles focus not only on human rights, but also on environmental sustainability and anti-corruption.

Finally, in 2009, Implementing Procedures were issued—designed to utilize existing operating mechanisms like Session D to anticipate human rights issues, promote respect for human rights and create a framework for resolving conflicts between national law and human rights principles.