By Luiz Gustavo Lo-Buono, former General Coordinator of Human Rights and Business, Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, Brazil

This blog was commissioned when Luiz Gustavo Lo-Buono was General Coordinator of Human Rights and Business, Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, Brazil. He has now left the Ministry.

It’s never been more important for business and human rights to become a single guiding vision for global sustainable development, particularly in the context of reducing inequalities and combating climate crises.

Starting with the Right to Development, which ensures that “all people can participate in and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised”, the driving principle for the adoption of legal measures and public policies on business and human rights must be “development for whom, and at whose cost?”

According to Oxfam International's 2024 report, since 2020 the five richest men in the world have doubled their fortunes - while almost five billion people across the planet have become poorer. Seven in 10 of the world's largest companies have billionaires as CEOs or main shareholders, bringing an immense concentration of power that is based on the accumulation of individual and corporate capital through mechanisms such as hyper-exploitation of labour, tax evasion and the race for privatisation of state services, particularly in countries in the Global South.

In relation to climate crises, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) points out that global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change. The Carbon Majors database, which tracks cumulative historical emissions of 122 industrial producers from 1854-2022, affirms that businesses are responsible for 72% of the global fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions. Besides, the issue of climate destruction collides with inequality when we consider 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to IPCC.

The responsibility of companies in combating inequalities and climate crises is evident if they are committed to real sustainable development. There is no sustainable development possible, after all, without the full guarantee of human and socio-environmental rights, including labour rights, in business operations.

In relation to the international legally binding instrument (LBI) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises, this was a vision shared between a series of Latin American, Caribbean and African States in various provisions commented on at the 9th negotiation session in 2023. Brazil, in fact, was one of the countries to request the specific inclusion of the Declaration on the Right to Development in the preambles of the LBI, as well as the inclusion of a statement on the importance of the pro persona principle and the principle of the primacy of the most favorable norm to the human person in the interpretation of any conflicting provision contained in international trade, investment, finance, taxation, environmental and climate change, development cooperation, and security agreements.

Crucially, the very existence of negotiation on an LBI comes mainly from identified gaps in businesses' liability regarding the relationship between their activities and the crises described above, notably in relation to violations of human and socio-environmental rights. We will not succeed in a model of sustainable development for everyone without advancing on this crucial point: mechanisms and instruments of businesses' liability.

In this sense, we must guarantee that dialogue on the LBI evolves quickly and substantially, focusing on the rightsholders, and on corporate liability. Like some of the recommendations collected from civil society organisations by the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship for the 2023 session, I would highlight the aspect of joint and solidary responsibility throughout the global value chain. Quoting the document shared by the organisations:

“To ensure the full protection of human rights, the future treaty must cover all activities along TNCs’ value chains. This means that liability must also be applied upwards, so that investors, shareholders, banks and pension funds that finance TNCs can be held accountable for human rights violations committed by the TNCs that they financially support. 

“The Treaty must therefore establish a comprehensive and adequate structure of legal, criminal, civil and administrative liability, which must be joint and several. Generally speaking, joint and solidary liability at the bottom of the value chain serves as a mechanism to ensure that all parties involved in a given violation of human rights and the environment are held responsible for any damage caused and that an appropriate solution is provided to affected communities and individuals.”

Ensuring the treaty effectively addresses liability issues will help create an international environment of greater cooperation between States in ensuring the full exercise of human rights. It will also assist with the development or adaptation of domestic legislation and public policies that are even more robust, such as what we have seen in Brazil with the current processing of the bill on business and human rights in the National Congress, and the development of a national business and human rights policy. International regulatory instruments and domestic due diligence legislation must be respected so that justice for affected communities and rightsholders can be achieved.