Human Rights obligations for business has been mainstream for the readymade garments sector for a while, and for the palm oil and electronics value chains globally as migrant labor has been a source of manpower for decades across internal and external migration corridors.

Mining and O&G have had stakeholder engagement before their projects and HRIAs have been commissioned specifically. With the advent of ESG as a metanarrative, human rights as dignity and care are operationalized in a quotidian level. Human Rights risks for the technology sector would be different to a resource extractive sector, and that context matters. Global human rights risk obligations stitch local risks in a networked fashion and elevate it to international registers.

At the core of the craft of consulting is solid research, on practical issues which enable managers to do their work better. Like academia, but different as the ends are not the politics of h-index. Both feed off each other. Professional services create value in their very elegance, and in their nadir a copy-paste machine.