4.4 Effectiveness
Does the bankʼs grievance mechanism meet effectiveness criteria?
About the data
The BankTrack Global Human Rights Benchmark is an independent assessment of the world’s largest commercial banks, measuring how they respect human rights in their policies, practices, and business relationships. Built on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the benchmark evaluates banks across key themes, including policy commitments, due diligence, remedy, and specific issues such as the protection of human rights defenders, free, prior, and informed consent, and environmental rights.
Why this metric is important: The UN Guiding Principles outline a set of eight effectiveness criteria to ensure that non-judicial grievance mechanisms, whether State-based or non-State-based, are effective in serving the rights-holders they are intended for. These criteria require that grievance mechanisms are legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable, transparent, and rights-compatible, among other requirements. Banks should use the effectiveness criteria as a guiding framework when designing, assessing and revising their own grievance mechanisms, or the mechanisms they participate in, to ensure they meet their purpose.
Why this metric is important: The UN Guiding Principles outline a set of eight effectiveness criteria to ensure that non-judicial grievance mechanisms, whether State-based or non-State-based, are effective in serving the rights-holders they are intended for. These criteria require that grievance mechanisms are legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable, transparent, and rights-compatible, among other requirements. Banks should use the effectiveness criteria as a guiding framework when designing, assessing and revising their own grievance mechanisms, or the mechanisms they participate in, to ensure they meet their purpose.
Methodology
Requirements for full and half score:
Full score: the bank shows how the grievance mechanism that it has established (or in which it participates) meets all of the UNGPs effectiveness criteria found in Guiding Principle 31, for example by conducting and reporting on assessment against these criteria, whether itself or via a third party.
Half score: the bank shows how the grievance mechanism that it has established (or in which it participates) meets at least two aspects of the UNGPs effectiveness criteria.
Full methodology can be found in the report.
Full score: the bank shows how the grievance mechanism that it has established (or in which it participates) meets all of the UNGPs effectiveness criteria found in Guiding Principle 31, for example by conducting and reporting on assessment against these criteria, whether itself or via a third party.
Half score: the bank shows how the grievance mechanism that it has established (or in which it participates) meets at least two aspects of the UNGPs effectiveness criteria.
Full methodology can be found in the report.
License
Framework Mappings
Value Type
Category
Options
Yes
Partially
No
Assessment
Steward Assessed