UN Meeting Looks At Legally Binding Instrument On Corporations And Human Rights

A gathering at the United Nations in Geneva this week is hearing a litany of views on a prospective legally binding international instrument to regulate within human rights law the activities of transnational corporations and other businesses. The meeting is being webcast live.

The meeting, taking place from 24-28 October, is entitled the “Second session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights.”

Today the event opened with remarks from renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs.

The mandate of the Open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights is below:

Mandate

At its 26th session, on 26 June 2014, the 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.”

The Human Rights Council also decided that the first two sessions of the open-ended intergovernmental working group “shall be dedicated to conducting constructive deliberations on the content, scope, nature and form of the future international instrument.”

Following its first session, which was held from 6 to 10 July 2015, the open-ended intergovernmental working group presented its report to the Council at its thirty-first session (please see the report A/HRC/31/50).

The second session will take place from 24-28 October 2016, also in the Palais des Nations, Geneva room XX.