Human Rights Compliance Assessment
The HRCA is a diagnostic tool, designed to help companies detect potential human rights violations caused by the effect of their operations on employees, local residents and all other stakeholders. The tool runs on a database containing approximately 350 questions and more than 1,000 corresponding human rights indicators, developed from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and over 80 other major human rights treaties and ILO conventions. The interactive web-based computer programme allows each company to select questions in the database to suit their type of business and area of operations. When a questionnaire is complete, the computer programme generates a final report identifying areas of compliance and non-compliance in the company’s operations. Numeric scores are included in the report to help the company report, improve and track its performance from year to year. In addition, the HRCA proposes ways of avoiding the main cultural and legal pitfalls of human rights issues and offers suggestions for how to strengthen the rights at greatest risk. The standards and indicators in the database are updated on an annual basis, based on feedback from company and human rights group users, and to reflect changes/developments in international human rights law
The HRCA underwent a large-scale consultation process in 2003-2004 involving over 40 companies and 40 human rights groups from 14 European countries. The process was designed to ensure that the standards and indicators in the tool reflected wider agreement between the human rights and business worlds on company responsibility for human rights.
Access to the HRCA Tool
Access to the Quick Check version of the HRCA tool is free.
Full access to the HRCA tool requires an annual fee. For further information, please contact Marie Busck, Adviser, Human Rights & Business Department. Phone (+45) 32 69 88 42 / Email: mab@humanrights.dk
Click to access the Quick Check & the full HRCA Tool
Further information
A Best
Practice Guide to the HRCA (Aim for Human Rights, 2007)
More information about the Consultation Process and the participants.
Full List of Contributors to the development of the HRCA
Introduction to HRCA Quick Check [pdf]
‘Building a Tool for Better Business Practice:
the human rights compliance assessment’ (M. Jungk, 2003).
‘Defining the Scope of Business Responsibility for Human Rights’
(M. Jungk, 2001).
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