United Nations: the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights has released the first draft of the legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises

At its 26th session, on 26 June 2014, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution A/HRC/RES/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 (OEIGWG), whose mandate is to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

The first and second sessions of the OEIGWG were dedicated to conducting constructive deliberations on the content, scope, nature and form of a future international instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.
During the third session, which took place in October 2017, the Working Group discussed the elements for a draft legally binding instrument prepared by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the OEIGWG taking into consideration the discussions held during the first two sessions.
After three sessions of the OEIGWG between 2015 and 2017, the Working Group has undertaken four open informal consultations between April and July 2018 in preparation towards the fourth session of the OEIGWG.

As a result of the four informal consultations and several other bilateral and multilateral meetings, the Working Group has prepared the draft “legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises” aiming to ensure an effective access to justice and remedy to victims of human rights violations in the context of business activities of transnational character, and to prevent the occurrence or repetitions of such violations.

This draft legally binding instrument, which is now circulating to States and relevant stakeholders, will be discussed and will serve as the basis for the negotiations to begin in the fourth session of OEIGWG, which will take place from 15 to 19 October 2018 in Geneva.

The text of the draft is available at the link below:

Last update

3/8/2018