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Opinion

3 Jul 2015

Author:
Mark Taylor, International Advisory Council, IHRB

The Movement and the IGWiG

UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

The Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room at UN Headquarters

One year ago, a remarkable diplomatic consensus that had lasted the better part of a decade was seemingly shattered when the Human Rights Council passed two separate resolutions on business and human rights: one was focused on the continued work of implementing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (GPs) while the other established an Open Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIWG) ‘to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises’.

At the time, I warned activists that the immediate risk of a treaty process was not so much a diversion from the GPs, or even a treaty (that will be many years in coming and will require reconstructing the diplomatic consensus). Rather, the greatest risk lay in the effects of a treaty process on civil society attempts to hold business accountable for human rights abuse. My fear was that a protracted treaty process would sink civil society energies into the swamp of member state negotiation of a treaty text in Geneva, diverting those energies from their proper target: pressing governments to take action to prevent and remedy human rights violations by business.

Drafting the Treaty - Elements and Process

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Building a binding instrument on business & human rights

Daniel Uribe & Kinda Mohamadieh, South Centre 26 Oct 2017

Opinion

A Legally Binding Instrument on Business & Human Rights - A Necessary Step in the Long Run

Manoela Carneiro Roland & Luiz Carlos Silva Faria Junior, Homa - Human Rights and Business Centre 24 Oct 2017

Opinion

The Elements for the treaty on business & human rights: Is it a step forward?

Carlos Lopez, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) 24 Oct 2017

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