The international framework on corporate responsibility evolves around the formally nonbinding UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of 2011 (UNGPs). A UN intergovernmental working group has been discussing and negotiating a legally binding instrument (LBI) on business and human rights for 10 years, but has yet to reach a consensus. Learning from the drafting experiences of other international human rights treaties contributes to an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the current process surrounding the LBI. This article analyzes substantive and procedural elements in the negotiations of these treaties such as building on international consensus enshrined in nonbinding declarations, aligning treaties with domestic policy preferences, and including affected rightsholders and civil society organizations in the negotiations. The article applies these findings to the negotiating process and contents of the LBI to identify pathways toward realizing a treaty on business and human rights.

Co-design is a term commonly used to describe involving people with lived experience in program, policy, and research design and its outcomes. However, the implementation of co-design is inconsistent due to a lack of an agreed-upon definition, framework, and set of principles for application. In this paper, the co-authors, as practising policy advocates and co-designers, aim to develop a set of guiding principles for genuine co-design with children and young people with disability in Australia. The paper first synthesises the existing Australian evidence from youth and disability scholarship, best practice approaches, and case studies of co-design projects recently undertaken where the co-authors are based at Children and Young People with Disability Australia, and then validates this evidence base through collaborative autoethnographic reflections of the co-authors’ collective experience in a co-design team. Drawing together themes and insights from this process, we propose four relationally driven guiding principles for genuine co-design that can be applied in Australian as well as international settings: 1. personalised: building trust and safety over time; 2. holistic: embedding co-design across the project lifespan; 3. reflexive: considering and sharing power; and 4. inclusive: prioritising accessibility and diversity. We end with final critical reflections on addressing power relations and ableist structures in genuine co-design with children and young people with disability.

Advances in artificial intelligence have made high-fidelity voice cloning increasingly accessible for people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). AI-driven systems can generate novel, highly realistic utterances from limited speech samples, offering new opportunities to preserve identity, relationships, and emotional nuance within augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Yet, it introduces distinct risks that extend beyond traditional message and voice banking, including impersonation, loss of control, erosion of voice as a trusted identifier, and posthumous persistence of a personal “acoustical fingerprint.” Consequently, individuals with ALS and their families ask questions about autonomy, privacy, delegation, and long-term management of cloned voices. This paper describes the development and implementation of a practice-based, patient-centered framework for AI-enabled voice cloning. Developed iteratively through longitudinal clinical encounters, the framework is operationalized through a Guiding Principles document and planning aid addressing informed consent, preferences, and ongoing review as disease, technology, and priorities evolve. The framework addresses autonomy and incorporates safeguards related to access control, ownership, professional accountability, and posthumous use. Conceptual alignment with international data-protection and AI-governance principles, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, supports the framework’s broader relevance, offering an approach for ethical integration into AAC practice while protecting identity, autonomy, and long-term interests.

Legal definitions shape rights, obligations, and protections in international, regional and domestic law. However, there is no universally accepted legal definition for individuals forced across borders by the impacts of climate change. This legal uncertainty creates protection gaps, leaving climate-displaced persons in limbo. The African Guiding Principles on the Human Rights of All Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers (2023) seeks to address this by explicitly defining "climate refugees" and "climate migrants". These definitions clarify state obligations and provide a framework for protecting climate-displaced persons, though as a soft law instrument its legal force depends on state domestication. This article examines the implications of these definitions within African regional law. It first explores the role of legal definitions in shaping and enforcing rights. It then evaluates pre-existing international and regional frameworks, highlighting the legal gaps in addressing climate displacement and mobility. The article critically analyses how the African Guiding Principles strengthen the protection of persons displaced by the impacts of climate change by confirming that they may qualify as refugees under the OAU Refugee Convention and introducing "climate migrant" as a distinct legal category. Finally, it assesses the challenges and opportunities in domesticating these definitions within African Union member states. The African Guiding Principles set a global precedent for legal responses to climate-induced displacement by formally recognising climate-displaced persons. This article argues that the domestic adoption of these definitions is essential to closing the gaps in protection and ensuring that the rights of African climate-displaced persons are respected, protected and fulfilled.

This article focuses on analyzing the current legal framework of Vietnam and relevant international standards regarding corporate responsibility toward workers in supply chains, with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The author argues that although Vietnamese law provides relatively comprehensive regulations on employers’ responsibilities toward direct employees, it lacks binding provisions on extended responsibilities within the supply chain. In practice, SMEs exhibit a significant gap between regulations and implementation, with numerous violations related to working conditions, employment contracts, wages, and occupational safety. The article proposes improving the legal framework by integrating international standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) and International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, while enhancing labor inspection, compliance support, and awareness-raising among SMEs to promote responsible business conduct in Vietnam.

Indigenous youth in Canada are disproportionately impacted by homelessness, which is reflective of broader systemic inequities rooted in historical and ongoing colonization and systemic racism. Indigenous perspectives on homelessness extend beyond the absence of a shelter and encompass cultural, relational, and spiritual disconnection. These unique dimensions necessitate culturally-relevant interventions. Despite mainstream housing stabilization programs (e.g., Housing First, Youth Reconnect) demonstrating effectiveness in assisting young people exit homelessness, these models are based largely on Western perspectives and may not fully address the needs of Indigenous youth. Existing practice-based literature often lacks specific details on service design beyond broad areas like employment assistance and life skills development, with even fewer studies focusing on Indigenous youth. This multiple case study aimed to explore key principles guiding the development of interventions that help Indigenous young people transition out of homelessness and improve their overall well-being. Case studies of four organizations deemed as leaders in the field demonstrated that wraparound support models were used to provide support extending beyond just housing, and that cross-cutting principles supporting program implementation included interconnectedness, continuity of care, relationship building, context-specific services, and culture as intervention. These findings highlight the successful implementation of both general approaches and culturally- and contextually-relevant approaches to housing stabilization for Indigenous youth. This research contributes to the growing body of literature focused on identifying and refining best practices to more effectively address and prevent youth homelessness.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming every stage of oncology drug development, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and patient-centered care. In January 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) jointly published the “Guiding Principles of Good AI Practice in Drug Development” (“FDA-EMA Guiding Principles”). 1 These 10 principles establish a shared transatlantic framework for the responsible design, validation, and oversight of AI systems across the drug lifecycle. This article distills the regulatory intent behind the FDA–EMA Guiding Principles and translates them into operational guidance for oncology researchers, clinicians, and institutional leaders engaged in evidence generation.

HRS/ACC Scientific Statement: Guiding Principles on the Performance of Intracardiac Ablation Procedures in Ambulatory Surgical Centers.

ORCA: Guiding principles for navigating uncertainty in design research

Climate migration has become a critical global issue, forcing millions of people to leave their homes due to environmental degradation, extreme weather, and slow-onset disasters like rising sea levels and prolonged droughts. In the same way as refugees fleeing war or economic crisis, climate migrants face life-threatening risks, even though their displacement is caused by environmental degradation, extreme weather, and climate-related disasters. This article explores the environmental causes of displacement, including deforestation, industrial pollution, global warming, and unsustainable farming practices, and highlights the extreme vulnerability of displaced populations in host countries, where legal protections are often limited or ambiguous. It also examines global migration patterns, particularly dangerous journeys to Europe, reviewing the international legal frameworks that protect migrants, such as refugee status and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Finally, the study outlines sustainable strategies, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, supporting these migrants in adapting to the impacts of climate change, and creating safe migration pathways, emphasizing the urgent need for global cooperation to address climate-related displacement.

Robust medicines governance is an essential component of good clinical governance for health service organisations. Standardisation of hospital medicines governance supports consistency in clinical care and equity in medicines access for patients both within those hospitals and at transitions of care. Medicines and Therapeutics Committees (MTCs) provide the strategic lead for medicines governance in Australian hospitals and have done so for many decades. Changes to the healthcare environment in which MTCs operate, however, have necessitated adaptation and evolution of these committees. Contemporary guidance is therefore required to support MTCs to provide consistent, high-quality medicines governance in Australia's modern healthcare environment. Achieving effective medicines governance: Guiding principles for the roles and responsibilities of Medicines and Therapeutics Committees in Australian hospitals was released in July 2025 with recommendations for the purpose, functions, structure, processes, documentation, communication and resourcing for Australian MTCs. The guidance is accompanied by a checklist to measure the performance of MTCs and other supporting resources. Australian hospital MTCs are encouraged to measure their practice against these guiding principles, using the associated tools, to achieve the best possible medicines governance within their available resourcing. Practice across jurisdictions is variable, and working to align individual MTC practices with the guiding principles will promote standardisation in approach to hospital medicines governance.

The UNGPs' three-pillar framework has received several critiques, notably concerning whether it is sufficient to combat human rights abuses. As a result, critics have proposed their own frameworks, aimed at addressing what they believe is missing from the UNGPs' framework. David Karp proposes one significant reform, introducing a pillar based on the idea of 'disembedded liberalism', focused on 'a collective political responsibility to challenge and change our current world order'. Such a reform could help enhance the UNGPs' effectiveness in combating human rights abuses, an area in which the UNGPs arguably fall short in contemporary society.

Nanofiber materials combine their nanoscale dependent characteristics with the structural advantages of fiber materials, showing broad applications in biomedical, flexible electronics, energy storage, and other fields. The practical application of such materials largely depends on their structural integrity and long-term reliability. As the fundamental building blocks of nanofiber assemblies, a single nanofiber has mechanical properties that directly govern the macroscopic mechanical behavior of the material system. Therefore, precise characterization and enhancement of the mechanical strength of a single nanofiber are of great significance. This paper provides a systematic review of the mechanical behavior of single nanofibers, including preparation methods for single nanofiber samples, key mechanical characterization techniques, and various strengthening strategies for both organic and inorganic nanofibers. Focusing on single-fiber mechanics, this review elucidates the major scientific challenges and bottlenecks currently faced in characterization and strengthening, offering constructive insights for the development of next-generation nanofiber materials with enhanced mechanical performance.

A just energy transition is a central topic in discussions about the future of energy, mainly since the commitment of 196 countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Efforts are concentrated on limiting the increase to approximately 1.5 degrees to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Colombia has set ambitious short-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets (51% by 2030) and a long-term goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Achieving these objectives necessitates a profound transformation driven by the Energy Transition Policy. The policy mandates a shift from less than 1% to over 12% in the energy matrix by 2022 for non-conventional renewable energies, a GHG emissions reduction target from 20% to 51% by 2030, and the prioritisation of ‘sustainable recovery’ as the cornerstone of the economic recovery strategy post-COVID 19. However, as the sixth-largest global coal exporter, Colombia faces an uncertain future. The geopolitical aftermath of the Ukrainian war has underscored the imperative to ensure energy security and expedite the transition to renewable energy sources. While an immediate economic opportunity exists for Colombia, the long-term outlook involves an escalating decline in coal demand. Climate policies and the rapid growth of renewables, with an expected global drop in coal demand through 2030, increasingly pressure coal's role in the power sector. The current Colombian energy transition policy, acknowledging the need for decarbonisation, does not envision provisions for repairing human rights impacts during the dismantling of coal operations. The existing legal frameworks on mine closure do not also consider human rights issues to remedy the adverse impacts caused to the affected communities during closure and post-closure. Questions arise regarding the Colombian government's ability to adapt and respond to the real-time decline in coal demand and potential closure operations. The consequences of the lack of preparation for these scenarios extend beyond the environment and the economy and land on the human rights of the individuals and dependent communities in the sector, such as La Guajira and Cesar departments. This scenario calls for a fair and equitable framework for the energy transition in the coal sector, prioritising the human rights of nature, individuals and populations dependent on the industry. Specific regulation focusing on human rights is required to establish clear obligations for authorities and companies during mine closure and post-closure of coal operations. The principles of restorative justice and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide a robust framework for states and companies to identify harm, assign responsibility, repair damage, and prevent future occurrences that can be used in Colombia's coal mine closure framework.

BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN NIGERIA: ASSESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND NATIONAL ACTION PLAN

The adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights has marked a global shift toward holding corporations accountable for human rights violations. Yet, in Southeast Asia, the regional implementation of these norms remains limited. Despite ASEAN’s rhetorical support for human rights, its economic integration agenda led by the ASEAN Economic Community has largely excluded binding human rights obligations. This gap raises a central question: Why has ASEAN failed to embed business and human rights norms into its regional economic governance? This article argues that ASEAN’s fragmented approach is driven by the political economy of its member states, in which economic growth and market liberalization are prioritized over human rights enforcement. Institutional commitments to sovereignty, noninterference, and consensus further entrench this dynamic by shielding powerful business sectors from scrutiny. Drawing on a structural analysis of ASEAN’s institutional design and member state interests, the study explains the region’s persistent accountability gaps. It contributes to debates on regional human rights governance by showing how economic imperatives and elite interests continue to undermine efforts to institutionalize the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Southeast Asia.

ABSTRACT Every business has a social responsibility to respect human rights, upheld by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the associated ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework. In response to this, human rights compliance clauses (‘HRCCs’) in international supply contracts are on the rise. In particular, they have been adopted by various multinational corporations with a presence in the UK stock market, including Centrica plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Procter & Gamble Company, Rio Tinto plc, and Unilever plc.. Whilst this is an admirable effort, this paper will argue that, as currently drafted, the HRCCs studied fail to meaningfully contribute to the development and enforcement of the Framework. This is exacerbated by the key barriers to the use of HRCCs, including privity of contract and commercial interest. However, it will be shown that the development and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) solutions in contract review, drafting, and enforcement, could improve the potential of HRCCs in making global supply chains more human rights compliant.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) represent a growing global challenge occurring within the borders of sovereign States. Contemporary international law establishes that States hold primary responsibility for their protection; however, significant gaps remain between legal norms and practice. This article reassesses State responsibility for IDPs through a doctrinal and normative lens, examining international frameworks such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the Kampala Convention, and relevant human rights and humanitarian law obligations. Using Cameroon as a case study, the article highlights persistent challenges, including selective compliance, weak domestic implementation, and limited accountability mechanisms. It argues that bridging these gaps requires stronger national legal frameworks and clearer international enforcement measures to ensure that States fulfill their duties to prevent displacement, protect affected populations, and provide durable solutions. By integrating doctrinal analysis with illustrative examples, the study clarifies how contemporary international law can effectively strengthen the protection of IDPs.

Internal displacement forces people from their homes due to conflicts, persecution, disasters, or crises within borders. Unlike refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain under national jurisdiction, lacking similar international safeguards. This editorial is an attempt to examine the complex interplay of internal displacement, policy frameworks, and governance amid a global crisis, with internal displacement affecting 123 million people, predominantly driven by conflicts, disasters, and systemic failures. The paper highlights disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups such as the elderly and second-generation displacees, while critiquing governance gaps, including resource shortages, administrative silos, and homogenised policy approaches. Stressing concepts of ontological security and rights-based approach, the authors call for a survivor-centred integrated Humanitarian, Development Peace (HDP) nexus, strategies that are proactive framework to foster social inclusion, ethical accommodation, and sustainable reintegration in line with the UN Guiding Principles.

The phenomenon of child labor exploitation in the textile industry is a form of human rights violation that continues to occur in various countries, including in the global supply chains of multinational corporations. This practice not only involves individual perpetrators but also demonstrates the systematic involvement of corporations through production policies, cost pressures, and disregard for labor standards. The concept of corporate complicity is relevant to analyzing the extent to which corporations can be held criminally liable for human rights violations that occur in their business activities. This study aims to examine the forms of corporate involvement in child labor exploitation in the textile industry and analyze the framework for corporate criminal liability from a national and international legal perspective. The research method used is normative legal research with a statutory, conceptual, and case study approach. The results show that corporations can be considered to have participated in or assisted in human rights violations if they know about, allow, or profit from the practice of child labor exploitation. Although various international legal instruments such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have affirmed corporate responsibility for human rights, their implementation in national law still faces obstacles, particularly regarding proving the element of guilt and imposing criminal sanctions on legal entities. Therefore, strengthening regulations, supply chain oversight mechanisms, and strict law enforcement are needed so that corporate criminal liability can be an effective instrument in preventing the exploitation of child labor and ensuring human rights protection.