As the major players in globalization, firms often operate in states where human rights may not be respected. Without direct intent, firms may be complicit in human rights violations. In 2008, John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on business and human rights, developed a framework for policymakers to protect human rights and executives to respect human rights. On 16 June 2011, the UN Human Rights Council endorsed Ruggie's 'Guiding Principles' for implementing this framework. This article describes how firms, states, and to a lesser extent NGOs, have responded to this delineation of the human rights responsibilities of business. We make four key points: the Guiding Principles are an important advance in global governance; the process of developing the Guiding Principles was a model of transparent, inclusive 21 st century governance, yet the public is generally unaware of the issue or the new policy; that the Guiding Principles are a creative and broad rethinking of how to evaluate the human rights performance of corporations; and that the Guiding Principles are unlikely to have much influence unless policymakers educate their home firms regarding their human rights responsibilities and press these executives to act.

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Governments sometimes adopt policies that are not aligned with their preferences or have not come onto their agendas when doing so is linked to a reward. International organizations can therefore set conditions for coveted membership that include adopting new human rights and regulatory policies. As international organizations increasingly converge around the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, how might they promote national uptake of these guidelines? This article considers the prospects of accession conditionality in answering this question. The focus of the article is on European Union and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expansion in Central and Eastern Europe, where uptake of business and human rights policies remains comparatively low. The article argues that while these organizations increasingly include business and human rights conditionalities in accession negotiations, there remains significantly greater scope for promoting the Guiding Principles.

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