After over two decades of incomplete but overall significant progress on corporate respect for human rights, we are at a crossroads. With the global rise of authoritarianism, narrow economic nationalisms, and corporate capture, and a rapidly changing US context, we’re facing real risk of backsliding by business on human rights.
Our US corporate human rights project examines how companies are responding to today's moment. We monitor company actions, as well as look for any changes to core human rights policies and commitments made by 54 US-headquartered companies in the technology, apparel, extractives, automotive, and agrifood sectors since January 2025. Our aim is to help prevent corporate backsliding on human rights.
Explore our analyses and policy/commitment index for the data we’ve collected to date.
Read our latest analysis
Retreat or Respect? Diverging corporate paths on human rights in a time of turbulence (published in June 2026) identifies three broad responses from US corporations to today's moment: some companies are actively undermining human rights progress, others are quietly retreating from past commitments, and some are holding firm despite the pressure. This mixed picture is cause for concern.
We invited companies to respond. See their responses here. [ADD LINK].
Policy/commitment index
The policy/commitment index shares overviews of the human rights policies, commitments, memberships and disclosures (as of 31 August 2025) for 54 US-headquartered companies across the technology, apparel, extractives, automotive, and agrifood (food/beverage and agriculture) sectors. We hope that civil society organizations and investors will use these reviews in their advocacy and efforts to better understand the state of these companies' human rights commitments and any changes over time. The Business and Human Rights Centre will periodically update these reviews.
Our reviews are not evaluations of the quality of companies’ policies and commitments, nor do we offer commentary on whether a company's statement meets a threshold to “count” toward an indicator. Rather, we capture companies’ statements related to a topic at a particular moment in time and monitor any changes over time.
Retreat or respect? Diverging corporate paths on human rights in a time of turbulence
Our latest analysis identifies three broad responses from US corporations to today's moment: some companies are actively undermining human rights progress, others are quietly retreating from past commitments, and some are holding firm despite the pressure. This mixed picture is cause for concern.
Related resources
Business and human rights in the United States: Four key trends in 2025
Companies’ core human rights policies and commitments remain largely unchanged, in contrast to some shifts in human rights-related AI and content moderation policies, and well-documented rollbacks on commitments related to DEI and climate. While commitments haven’t changed on paper, our analysis of companies’ responses to changing policies, regulations and rhetoric in the US paints a more alarming picture.
Abuse without borders: Migrant workers' rights global analysis 2026
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Header image: Peter Haden, flickr