This report is prepared in anticipation of the first meeting of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIWG) established by the Human Rights Council to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises...The current international legal order suffers from an imbalance that creates a gap in human rights protection as it relates to business activity...The Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group’s elaboration of an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights is a vital legislative moment in the decades-long process of achieving adequate and effective accountability mechanisms for corporations operating abroad. The codification of ETOs [extraterritorial obligations] in such an instrument will close the protection gaps resulting from TNC violations of human rights that is endemic in the current legal order, and it will ultimately bring greater protections and remedies to affected individuals and communities throughout the world...