In October 2016, ministers, bankers and civil society representatives signed the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement (DBSA) on Human Rights - one of a series of “covenants” on responsible business conduct developed across various sectors in the Netherlands. The Agreement commits 11 Dutch banks to work together with other signatories from civil society, trade unions and government towards meeting their responsibilities to respect human rights, as set out in the OECD Guidelines and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. BankTrack followed the Agreement as a non-signatory from its inception to its close in 2020.

BankTrack articles on the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement

BankTrack has published the following articles reviewing the DBSA and its outputs to date:

• Going Dutch: What’s in the new Dutch banking sector agreement on human rights?, November 2016

• Not rushing these things: The first Annual Report of the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement on Human Rights, August 2018

• How to move the world: the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement's Increasing Leverage paper, phase one, October 2018

• Banks must show their teeth to tackle cocoa abuses - BankTrack’s view of the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement’s Cocoa Paper, December 2018

​External links to DBSA resources

• The DBSA web page 
• The DBSA agreement, October 2016
• Legal report on the possibilities for increased transparency in light of the adhering banks’ client confidentiality obligations, June 2017
• Cocoa value chain analysis, July 2018​
• Increasing leverage working group final report, September 2019
• Enabling Remediation, May 2019
• Final report of the Independent Monitoring Committee, July 2020 (and Civil Society Response, August 2020)