Recommendations Recs To ICT Companies 1. Apply international standards of responsible business conduct in the absence of developed national legal frameworks, in particular the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: The Corporate Responsibility to Respect 10. Business enterprises should respect human rights. This means that they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Human Rights Policy Commitment 15. In order to meet their responsibility to respect human rights, business enterprises should have in place policies and processes appropriate to their size and circumstances, including: a) A policy commitment to meet their responsibility to respect human rights; b) A human rights due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their impacts on human rights; c) Processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts they cause or to which they contribute. UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Human Rights Due Diligence 17. In order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts, business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed. Human rights due diligence: a) Should cover adverse human rights impacts that the business enterprise may cause or contribute to through its own activities, or which may be directly linked to its operations, products or services by its business relationships; b) Will vary in complexity with the size of the business enterprise, the risk of severe human rights impacts, and the nature and context of its operations; c) Should be ongoing, recognising that the human rights risks may change over time as the business enterprise’s operations and operating context evolve. This SWIA has highlighted the current gaps in the Myanmar’s evolving policy and legal framework. Due to the rapid pace of change, and lack of capacity and experience among legislators and Government ministries, there is no guarantee that, once adopted, Myanmar laws will fully reflect international standards. Nor are they guaranteed to protect workers, users, communities and the businesses themselves from the risks highlighted in the SWIA. In addition to providing companies certainty at a time when the national legal landscape is in flux, using international standards – such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises for the companies to which they are applicable) – also provides confidence to local and international stakeholders. Because the situation is changing so rapidly, ICT sector companies should consistently scan their operating environments to understand the human rights risks that may be created by Government actions, or by their own operations, or those of their business partners. RECOMMENDATIONS TO ICT COMPANIES 23