Today, Margaret Jungk resigned from the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights.

The MB&HR project worked closely with Margaret during the past five years, including in preparation of the latest report of the UN Working Group to the General Assembly (a report which focused specifically on how to improve the way in which we measure implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights). It is therefore not a surprise to us that Margaret included a strong statement about the importance of measuring business and human rights in her resignation letter. You can find the statement here below:

The issue of measurement must be addressed. If we are serious about implementing the Guiding Principles, we need to know where progress is taking place and which issues and actors are lagging behind. Without robust measurement efforts, we will be subject to speculation, misinformation, and anecdotes posing as data. I realize that measuring the state duty to protect and the company responsibility to respect carries political risks and value judgements in the determination of what and how to measure. Yet with dozens of other challenging issues—from corruption to child labour to human trafficking—we have faced these obstacles. The first step toward solving a problem is understanding it. And every day we postpone measurement efforts, we fail to do both.

We take this opportunity to thank Margaret for her continuous support during the past years.

You can find her full resignation letter here.