Talks on UN Treaty for TNCs: A Victory for Human Rights Groups

Human rights groups praised the outcomes of the the first session of the U.N. Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, which ended Friday in Geneva.

The negotiations are meant to adopt binding rules – instead of the current voluntary guidelines – to prevent transnational corporations from violating human rights and to ensure access to justice for victims of corporate abuses worldwide.

“With the shameful exceptions of the EU, USA and several other rich countries, the States who were present should be commended for their engagement with this vital process.”

According to campaigners, the current system of voluntary guidelines allows companies to enjoy impunity for privileging their own profits above human and environmental rights, using for instance various strategies like lobbying, financing political parties and electoral campaigns, bribery or negotiating with repressive governments.

During the five days of negotiations, it was reported that the European Union put a lot of effort into undermining the talks, objecting for instance the agenda for the meeting, thereby delaying the dialogue for several hours, reported FIAN International. However, the impasse ended as many other countries including Ecuador, South Africa, Indonesia, India, and China, as well as hundreds of organizations and the U.N. Human Rights Council were supportive backers of the treaty.

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“With the shameful exceptions of the EU, USA and several other rich countries, the States who were present should be commended for their engagement with this vital process,” said Anne van Schaik, Sustainable Finance Campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe. 

"We believe the Representative of the EU Delegation has no official formal mandate to corral 28 member states into silence on such an important matter as human rights and transnational corporations. As civil society organizations and social movements, present here in the U.N. today, we protest the disruptive behavior of the EU, and we challenge the EU member states to declare their position on this matter, and not simply repeat the EU stance," she added.

The Intergovernmental Working Group on transnational corporations and human rights was established through the U.N. Human Rights Council in June 2014 with the task of creating an internationally binding framework to regulate corporations with respect to international human rights law.

With the impending global trade deals like the TPP and TTIP, which will further consolidate corporate power, implementing such a binding treaty has become a top priority for human rights groups.