Following a vote in favour of a resolution tabled by Ecuador and South Africa in the UN Human Rights Council last June, work has now started towards developing a new international treaty on business and human rights. Below are links to key documents and online updates from Geneva.
All official documentation is available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/WGTransCorp/Pages/Session1.aspx
Watch the sessions live on UN Web TV. See http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/1st-session-of-open-ended-intergovernmental-working-group-on-transnational-corporations/4340279576001
The global civil society movement for a binding treaty, the Treaty Alliance is providing twice-daily updates from the Geneva meeting on their website http://www.treatymovement.com/un-eng/ , along with their formal statements to the sessions. On twitter, activists and other participants are using #StopCorporateAbuse and #bizhumanrights
Statements from Amnesty International and the ECCJ (European Coalition for Corporate Justice) are available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/IOR40/1897/2015/en/ and http://corporatejustice.org/Business-and-Human-Rights-Coherent-action-at-national-regional-and.html?lang=en
Professor Anita Ramasastry and Professor Doug Cassell recently authored a ‘White Paper’ on possible options for the treaty, for the American Bar Association and the Law Society of England & Wales http://business-humanrights.org/en/white-paper-outlines-possible-options-for-business-human-rights-treaty
Points 27 & 28 of the European Parliament resolution of 12 March 2015 on the EU’s priorities for the UN Human Rights Council in 2015 (2015/2572(RSP)) make reference to the participation of EU states in the treaty discussions http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+B8-2015-0230+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
