"Panel 2, Subtheme 1 – Examples of national legislation and international instruments with obligations of States applicable to TNCs and other business enterprises and human rights", 25 Oct 2016

There is a huge network of international instruments which create obligations for States to regulate companies for a long time, such as the International Labour Standards of the ILO...Furthermore, as everyone knows, alongside the International Labour Standards there is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as a wide range of conventions which govern protection of individual human rights and which also include, of course, the regulation of business in this regard. Thus, to be very clear, there is a well-developed international human rights regime that through the ratification and implementation by states also becomes applicable to companies – transnational as well as purely domestic ones...There is also an increasing amount of legislation at national level...Much legislation has been passed in the last few years...We now have to analyse the impact and understand the successes and failures of the different approaches. Is there any national legislation which could be used as a blueprint for an international treaty?...National approaches, which also reflect different contexts and circumstances, are too divergent. Indeed, the UN Guiding Principles was never about a one-size-fits approach, but rather it aimed to take the national context as the starting point.