Civil society must play a central role in the process to develop a binding treaty on business and human rights, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) has told the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) in charge of the issue. The call came as, on the second day of the IGWG’s first working week, civil society interventions were temporarily suspended...‘Effective participation by civil society in the treaty process is not optional, but it is a right for NGOs that the chair of the IGWG is obliged to uphold’, said ISHR’s Ben Leather of ISHR delivering a statement to the IGWG...ISHR also called on the Chair of the Working Group to circulate future programmes of work ahead of time, to allow global civil society to prepare its participation, but commended inclusive initiatives such as the webcasting of the session and the openness to consider submissions from non-ECOSOC NGOs...