This internship report explores the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in supporting stakeholders in implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles and advancing the business and human rights agenda from the case and perspective of the Business and Human Rights Unit (BHRU), the primary team within OHCHR carrying out the BHR mandates requested by the Human Rights Council.

According to the OHCHR’s theory of change, the study systematically analyzes the OHCHR's five main initiatives, three focused issues, the 2023 Work Plan, and the strategy elaboration. The study finds that the OHCHR's BHR work aligned with the organization’s theory of change. It is through “What we do” to contribute to the targeted outcome of Development and other Pillars. The work on five initiatives and issues in focus has contributed to enhance the judicial and non-judicial mechanisms to hold businesses to account for human rights abuses (Pillar D1), to support enterprises in effectively implementing the UNGPs (Pillar D2), to applying human rights assessments in economic, trade and development sector to address the adverse impacts (Pillar D6), as well as to sharing the dynamic knowledge and communicating the efforts externally, two goals in the Organizational Effectiveness Action Plans. The report further provides recommendations for the OHCHR BHR Unit's consideration based on the identified main challenges, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses from analyzing the strategy developing meetings and interviews to a future greater impact in the BHR field.

The study aims to help stakeholders better understand the OHCHR’s BHR work and identify potential opportunities to engage in, contribute, and enrich the business and human rights research, inform, and benefit the OHCHR, stakeholders, and the overall and future BHR study and practice. Given the nature of the paper as an internship report, the research is limited and more focused on the role of OHCHR, which will benefit the organization more than the broad academic research or other stakeholders. Moreover, the information collected from different types of respondents, including the researcher, with different familiar extents with the Unit’s work affected the overall information base for the analysis and the analysis balance. It may be better to bring more other external stakeholders’ ideas.

Keywords: Business and Human Rights, UNGPs, OHCHR, treaty, stakeholder.