Has the Treaty process lost its soul?

At its 26th session, on 26 June 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted resolution 26/9 by which it decided “to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.”

In 2020, the negotiations for the UN Binding Treaty on Corporate Accountability will take place differently due to the COVID-19 precautionary measures.

Ahead of the 6th session, the Permanent Mission of Ecuador, on behalf of the Chairmanship of the OEIGWG, released a second revised draft legally binding instrument on business activities and human rights. The second revised draft will serve as the basis for State-led direct substantive intergovernmental negotiations during the sixth session of the OEIGWG, which will take place from 26 to 30 October 2020.

The Global Campaign of civil society groups worldwide says this second revised draft of the binding instrument has “lost its soul”.