"Treaty Process Gets Underway: Whoever Said It Would Be Easy?", 12 Jul 2015

The first session of the UN Intergovernmental Working Group to draft an “international legally binding instrument” on business and human rights convened in Geneva July 6-10…Organized thematically by topics ranging from general principles to remedial mechanisms, each topic began with presentations by experts, followed by interventions by States, then by civil society, and finally responses by the experts.  The quality of the experts and their interventions was high…Ecuador arranged for a diversity of backgrounds and views among panelists.  Some came from UN entities and experts…Business viewpoints were represented as well…NGO written submissions and interventions from the floor were informative and well thought out…Unfortunately, there were also major downsides.  First was a lack of State participation…Second was the absence of key home States of TNCs whose participation will be critical if TNCs are to be effectively regulated by a global treaty…Third was the rigidity…of several other countries in its core group of supporters (as discussed below in connection with the EU). And fourth was the lack of human rights credibility among some countries in that core group…The Key Divisive Issue: What Companies Will a Treaty Regulate?...[Also refers to Sodexo]