"Influence of corporations in treaty process would undermine affected communities' interests", 21 Jul 2015

The environment of impunity transnational corporations are afforded globally remains grimly visible in the Asia Pacific Region…[T]he adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of a Resolution last year to elaborate a binding instrument…provides a critical opportunity to advance corporate accountability. Civil society representatives from the Asia Pacific region gathered earlier this year to discuss how to ensure that the process of developing a treaty responds to the needs of communities…One key issue resonated throughout these consultations: in order for the treaty to genuinely serve the priorities and interests of affected communities, corporate participation in the process of elaborating and adopting the treaty must be expressly prohibited… It is…a response to the fundamental power imbalance that exists between the private sector and civil society...This treaty needs to reassert a clear distinction between those who should regulate and those who must be regulated- an intention that, history shows, is consistently undermined when the corporate sector plays a role in designing the regulatory mechanism…