The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign) and its member organisations and movements – including Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) – have been following the process of the Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises of Transnational Character with Regard to Human Rights (Binding Treaty) since its inception. The process towards the Binding Treaty was inaugurated by Resolution 26/9 adopted in 2014 at the UN Human Right Council, an achievement of organised civil society that pushed for an international binding framework that could establish a common global standard and address the architecture of impunity enjoyed by transnational corporations.
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One of civil society’s main historical demands for the instrument is that it must establish specific obligations targeting transnational corporations directly. In 2022, the Global Campaign published a document2 outlining legal arguments for establishing proper and direct obligations within the Legally Binding Treaty.
This briefing seeks to reinforce and expand the argument, as well as to initiate discussion on what these obligations might be and where to insert them in the Binding Treaty text currently under negotiation.
The sections included provide an analysis of why it is possible and vital for these obligations to be included in the text under negotiation, their impact on making the Treaty legally effective and their importance for affected people and communities. Some proposals are presented seeking to initiate a debate, which should continue with the participation of communities, peoples, trade union organisations and all potentially affected movements, as well as with States, especially those of the Global South, so that they can contribute on the basis of their national and regional instruments.
