Our Policies and Principles

OUR APPROACH TO HUMAN RIGHTS DUE DILIGENCE

• Sustainability: We use a phased approach, effective prioritization, and scalable tools to make human rights due diligence actionable and sustainable for our clients;
• Practicality: We provide practical guidance with roadmaps for implementation and leverage existing policies and processes whenever possible;
• Collaboration: We work side by side with our clients to transfer our knowledge, build internal capacity, and combine external perspective with institutional knowledge;
• Grounded in International Standards: Our process aligns with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other international human rights standards; and
• Meaningful Engagement: We incorporate direct consultation with rights-holders and leverage existing community engagement efforts to ensure accurate findings. If direct engagement with rightsholders may not be possible, we work with our clients to develop alternative approaches, such as seeking insights directly from stakeholders viewed as legitimate representatives of rightsholders.

STAKEHOLDER RECIPROCITY

We believe stakeholder reciprocity is critical to advancing our field. To thank external stakeholders for their time and input, Article One offers a small honorarium to participating stakeholders. In addition, Article One will develop a high-level, non-attributed, aggregated summary of key insights from the engagement to be shared with participating stakeholders.

Both the honorarium and the summary of key themes will advance the principle of reciprocity—a core expectation for corporate stakeholder engagement on human rights and an important tenet of our Ethical Research Principles (see below).

CHILD SAFEGUARDING POLICY

Article One is committed to respecting and advancing child rights. A core expectation of this commitment is to safeguard children we may come into direct or indirect contact with.

As a human and child rights advisory firm, Article One staff may come into direct (e.g., via interviews) and indirect (e.g., via surveys) contact with children. While we see this as essential to direct engagement with rightsholders as part of our human rights efforts, we recognize the risks involved and our corresponding duty of care. We have a zero-tolerance approach to child abuse, including child labor. Definitions include:

• Child: any individual under age 18.
• Child abuse: all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity.
• Child safeguarding: actions taken by Article One to prevent physical, sexual and emotional abuse and maltreatment perpetrated by employees or other persons whom the company is responsible for, including contractors, business partners, visitors to premises and volunteers.
• Child protection: actions taken to address a specific concern that a particular child is at risk of significant harm due to his or her contact with Article One or our partners.

Our commitment to child safeguarding applies to all Article One staff and partners, including field-level research partners, and anyone else acting on behalf of the company. If Article One staff and partners are required to engage directly with children, we will:

• Conduct a background check on each staff members and partners;
• Train staff members and partners on our expectations regarding child safeguarding and our Ethical Research Principles which include our commitment to equal treatment;
• Instruct each staff member and partner, when in doubt about the age of an individual they engage with, to consider the individual a child for the purpose of applying this policy; and
• Outline a clear and rights-compatible process for escalating concerns related to child safeguarding, including alerting local authorities or child rights advocates where necessary.

While Article One is committed to a robust management process led by the company’s principals,  safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. If you have questions or concerns related to this policy, please email hello@articleonadvisors.com.

OUR COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY

Article One recognizes the essential connection between environmental protection and human rights. We are committed to operating our business in a way that respects the environment and minimizes environmental impacts.

As a small company operating in the services industry, our environmental impact is minimal. However, to ensure we contribute to a healthy planet. we take the following steps:

• Minimize our environmental footprint by limiting use the use of unnecessary products and engaging only in essential travel; and
• Choose suppliers whose policies align with our commitments, including Apple and Microsoft.

In addition, as part of our consulting work, we seek to guide our clients towards mitigating adverse environmental impacts that have the ability to negatively affect the wellbeing of rightsholders. This includes identifying and addressing risks related to the right to water and healthy ecosystems, as well as the ability of environmental impacts to adversely affect the right to health.

While Article One is committed to a robust management process led by the company’s principals,  ensuring a sustainable planet is everyone’s responsibility. If you have questions or concerns related to this policy, please email chloe@articleonadvisors.com.

ETHICAL RESEARCH PRINCIPLES

Engaging stakeholders around human rights necessitates attention to any barriers to participation – including age, gender, language, cultural beliefs and norms, among many others. As such, the assessment team will work with local organizations to promote the inclusion of underrepresented voices in the assessment. Article One is committed to pursuing meaningful and reciprocal engagement with stakeholders.

In order to ensure participants are appropriately informed and protected during the engagement, the assessment team will implement the following guidelines: 

• Ensure the anonymity of all individual participants by aggregating data and ensuring the final report contains no identifiable information.
• Consultations will be carried out with respect for the cultural practices, beliefs and norms of each community or group. Language, literacy levels, security and digital access issues will be taken into account and engagement will be on the terms of the stakeholder.
• Provide participants with a written summary of the project, proposed engagement topics/questions, and expected outcomes in a language and format they can understand.
• To ensure reciprocity and minimize the burden placed on stakeholders, we seek to share written summaries of the engagement outcomes on conclusion of the project and offer honorariums for participation whenever possible and appropriate.
• Ensure an accessible and appropriate mechanism is put in place for stakeholders to issue a complaint in case they have concerns after the engagement, including concerns regarding retribution for engaging in the assessment.