Affected communities and social movements urge to get negotiations back on track in the face of a new diversionary threat to the process
The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign), a network of more than 250 social movements, civil society organizations, trade unions and representatives of affected peoples and communities, expresses its unwavering commitment to the adoption within the UN Human Rights Council of an ambitious and effective international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations (TNCs) and human rights1.
In the run-up to the 8th session of the OEIGWG (October 24-28, 2022), we believe that it is essential to maintain a dynamic and transparent negotiation process that will build on the agreements adopted in the Conclusions and Recommendations of the previous sessions...
We are thus disappointed and gravely concerned with the patent and inexplicable step backwards by the Chair of the OEIGWG (Ecuador) with respect to the work methodology and the contents of the 8th session. The Chair presented a document containing informal textual proposals on some of the key articles of the draft Treaty, purportedly to advance the negotiations. However, this set of proposals totally disregards the methodology agreed by the Working Group at the 7th session and the work carried out over the years by social movements, civil society organizations, trade unions, people and communities affected by the TNCs, as well as many States participating in the negotiations...
We in the Global Campaign reject and oppose the consideration of these informal text proposals...
...[W]e denounce that the text of the Presidency:
- arbitrarily excludes a good part of the proposals presented by different States and in particular those that are aligned with the Global Campaign. This not only calls into question the transparency of the process and its open and participatory nature, but may further delay the discussions;
- leaves the adoption of specific normative mechanisms to the decision of each State according to its internal situation, without a clear mandate for reform. This negatively affects such key issues as corporate criminal liability, access to justice, the reversal of the burden of proof and statutes of limitation;
- eliminates the ability of the future Treaty to create a level playing field; and
- arbitrarily eliminates any mention of TNCs, whose regulation at the international level is the core of the proposed Treaty.
With this proposal, the Chair definitively departs from the mandate of Resolution 26/9 and from the objective of creating a global normative framework...