Baby Milk Action is the UK member of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), consisting of more than 270 groups in over 160 countries. We monitor the baby food companies against UN marketing standards adopted by the World Health Assembly. Specifically the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, which was really the first attempt to set standards for an industry sector at the international level, long before the Tobacco Convention...

If we are serious about protecting human rights, we have to put human rights before business interests. Business should be consulted, of course, but human rights should not be negotiated away. We need the measures that are necessary, not just those that will be tolerated by business...A big concern remains, however: what happens when regulations do not exist or are not enforced? So we would like to see some sort of complaint, investigation and enforcement mechanism at international level included in the Treaty.

Not just home nation responsibility for the actions of their corporations in other countries, but an international system for when national measures fail.
Home nations may be reluctant to put their corporations at a competitive disadvantage by taking more robust action than other countries, so there needs to be an international mechanism as well to create a level playing field...

When people say the UN Global Compact and OECD Guidelines make a binding Treaty unnecessary, we disagree.

We need a Treaty with strong mechanisms...One idea is to make it a legal requirement for Corporate Social Responsibility reports to be truthful, with a board member legally responsible for them, as happens with company accounts. There could be an international public prosecutor to take legal action at some form of international court if a preliminary investigation of complaints finds there is a case to answer. To change behaviour any sanctions have to be meaningful...I hope the Treaty process will look to imaginative ideas to protect human rights and will bring in measures that are necessary, not just those that will be tolerated by business.