The National Contact Points (NCPs) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (MNE Guidelines) are a set of recommendations on Responsible Business Conduct, addressed by governments to enterprises operating in or from adhering countries (including 38 OECD members and 13 non-members representing all regions of the world). They provide principles and standards for Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) in a global context consistent with applicable laws and internationally recognised standards. The MNE Guidelines are multilaterally agreed and comprehensive code of RBC that governments have committed to promoting, and focus on all main areas involving business conduct, including human and labour rights, environmental protection, taxation, consumer interests, bribery, disclosure, and science and technology, among others.

They are closely aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. They establish that all companies have the responsibility to avoid and address adverse impacts with which they are involved, including in their supply chains, while making a positive contribution to the economic, environmental and social progress of the countries in which they operate.

The last update to the MNE Guidelines was carried out in 2023 and included consultations with a wide range of stakeholders and partners, including non-adhering G20 economies, BIAC, TUAC and OECD Watch. This 2023 update reflects a decade of experience since their last review in 2011 and responds to urgent social, environmental, and technological priorities facing societies and businesses.

National Contact Points (NCPs)

The MNE Guidelines are supported by a unique implementation mechanism of National Contact Points (NCPs), which are agencies established by adhering governments to promote and implement the Guidelines. Their mandate is twofold, namely (i) to promote the MNE Guidelines and related guidance, and (ii) to handle cases (referred to as ‘specific instances’) as a non-judicial grievance mechanism. Adhering governments have an obligation to establish NCPs and, to date, 51 governments have established them. NCPs are governed by the principle of ‘functional equivalence’, meaning that, regardless of their organisational set-up, they must function with an equivalent degree of effectiveness. There are four criteria for functional equivalence: visibility, accessibility, transparency and accountability.

Any individual or organisation, including national trade unions and/or global union federations, can submit a case to an NCP regarding a company, operating in or from the country of the NCP, which has not observed the MNE Guidelines. Collectively, since 2000, NCPs have handled more than 600 cases, addressing impacts from business operations in over 100 countries and territories, linked to alleged corporate, social, environmental, labour or human rights abuses. NCPs also make up a network and a community of practitioners, dealing with a wide range of impacts involving companies through operations or supply chains. In 2020, over half of the NCPs had non-governmental organisations in their institutional structures. Trade unions have also used the NCP mechanism in many cases related to the employment chapter (unions were the submitters in 13 per cent of cases in 2020). In 2020, 31 per cent of referrals were related to employment and industrial relations.

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