Azalina: Businesses must make human rights part of doing business

HL: Azalina: Businesses must make human rights part of doing business

By Aza Jemima Ahmad

KUALA LUMPUR: Businesses, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), should use the newly launched Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) Guide to identify and address human rights risks in their management and decision-making.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said the guide adopted a risk-based and proportionate approach.

She said this recognised the varying resources, structures and risks faced by businesses.

"I therefore encourage businesses, from our largest corporations to our SMEs, to use this guide not merely as another compliance document."

She also called on businesses to use the guide as a management and decision-making tool in building better and more responsible businesses.

Delivering her keynote address at the National Conference on Business and Human Rights 2026 today, Azalina said respect for human rights should become part of how businesses operated rather than being viewed merely as a cost.

"It should also be reflected in corporate policies, operations, supply chains, business relationships and decision-making," she said.

She said the government had been engaging regulators, industry representatives and businesses to understand their existing practices, challenges and readiness.

Azalina said the HRDD Guide was part of Malaysia's implementation of the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights 2025-2030 (NAPBHR), launched on Aug 12 last year.

The action plan translates the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into Malaysia's context through three priority areas — governance, labour and environment.

It is supported by 135 strategic actions involving the government, businesses and other stakeholders.

Azalina said the plan must not become another policy document that sat on a shelf.

She said that business and human rights required shared responsibility, ownership and sustained partnerships between the government, businesses and other stakeholders.

She said Malaysia must continue to "learn, to measure, to improve, and to adapt" in implementing the NAPBHR until 2030.

"By 2030, based on the measurements by BHEUU (Legal Affairs Division), our success will not be measured by the meetings we have held or reports we have produced, but by the meaningful differences we make for our workers, communities, businesses and the people," said Azalina.

She also congratulated BHEUU for its leadership in coordinating the implementation of the NAPBHR and developing the HRDD Guide.