"SOMO, CIDSE, Brot für die Welt, IBFAN, IBFAN-GIFA and Global Policy Forum oral statement on Scope of the Treaty", 07 Jul 2015

...With regard to the scope of the businesses the treaty would cover...we have identified a hybrid option that we would like to share with you...In short, the hybrid option entails that, conceptually, the treaty would NOT exclude any specific type of business, but, in its substance, it would focus on developing provisions for transnational operations, thereby addressing the current challenges to hold transnational corporations to account...Our organisations fear that any attempt to limit the treaty's scope by providing a definition of targeted corporations - thereby excluding a subset of companies - will inevitably result in lawyers advising enterprises how to bypass the given definitional contours, and would thus provide loopholes in the protection against business related human rights abuse. Therefore, the proposed international instrument in our view should not exclude any business category...