HRIC joins the whole B&HR community in mourning the passing of Prof. J. G. Ruggie on September 16th.
We are deeply saddened to hear about this lost and, now more than ever, we reaffirm our effort and commitment to carry out his legacy in our daily work to protect human rights and to raise the awareness about the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
His leadership will continue to inspire HRIC mission and the Italian B&HR movement in the years to come and his spirit and teachings will last in all we do and will do in future at HRIC. At the same time, we commit ourselves to fuel the changes he set and proposed since his appointment as UN Special Representative in 2005. His inspiration and contribution to the B&HR cause will be greatly missed, but they will keep living on in the voices and works of our community.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and colleagues.
The Executive Board The Core Members HRIC Members
John Gerard Ruggie (18 October 1944 – 16 September 2021) was the Berthold Beitz Research Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. From 1997 to 2001, Ruggie served as United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning, a post created specifically for him by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was one of the architects of the United Nations Global Compact, as well as of the Millennium Development Goals, the precursor of the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2001 Annan and the UN as a whole were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for, among other achievements, "bringing new life to the organization." In 2005, Annan appointed Ruggie as the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Business and Human Rights. In that capacity, he developed a set of principles, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,which the UN Human Rights Council endorsed unanimously in 2011. They are also known as the "Ruggie principles" or the "Ruggie framework". The Guiding Principles have since served as the global soft law standard in this space, and a number of jurisdictions continue to incorporate their elements into hard law.
(photo and bio credits to Wikipedia, 2021).