Legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises: Preliminary Comment on the "Zero Draft" Convention
Four years after the adoption of Resolution 26/9 which established the Open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG), with a mandate to elaborate an international binding instrument on transnational companies and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, the release of the “Zero Draft” of an international binding Convention on transnational companies and other business enterprises and human rights is certainly an important step towards more substantial debates. In this respect, it is expected that session IV of the IGWG, which will take place in Geneva next October 2018, will offer an opportunity to have a meaningful discussion between States’ delegations and should represent a concrete improvement in the negotiation process...This contribution summarises the position of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) regarding the text released by Ecuador: it is a preliminary comment on the text as it has been presented. It follows the structure of the draft and focuses only on some of its articles; it draws on FIDH’s experience as an international federation of human rights organisations around the world: we hope that it can provide useful inputs and feed into the discussions during the negotiation process.