Treaty to Regulate Corporate Power

Around the world, people and communities are confronting widespread and systemic human rights abuses related to business activities. This trend is intensified by the lack of effective regulation in both the home and host States of corporations, as well as a failure to ensure effective access to remedy and accountability. For over a decade, ESCR-Net has played a crucial role in advancing the development of a clear and comprehensive international human rights framework on corporate accountability, including a  binding treaty on human rights and business.

The binding treaty, also known as a draft treaty, is an international instrument aimed at addressing human rights and environmental abuses and violations caused by businesses. It also aims to enhance access to justice for individuals and communities facing business-related abuses and violations such as land grabbing, risking lives, destruction of natural resources, and slave-like working conditions.

History of the Treaty Movement

In 2013, ESCR-Net held the first Peoples’ Forum on Human Rights and Business, during which our members outlined demands for a human rights-based approach to corporate regulation in a joint civil society statement that became the first statement of the Treaty Alliance. The statement called for establishing an intergovernmental working group dedicated to developing an international legally binding instrument to address corporate human rights abuses and ensure that effective accountability and redress mechanisms are available for affected people. Over 1000 signatories, including over 600 organizations and 400 individual advocates from over 100 countries, signed the statement. 

In 2014, the UN Human Rights Council passed Resolution 26/9, which established an open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG) with a mandate to develop an international legally binding human rights treaty to regulate the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises. Since then, we have kept mobilizing and advocating for a robust treaty and encouraging national, regional, and international measures to strengthen corporate accountability. 

Throughout these years, in the Corporate Accountability Working Group (CAWG), we have consistently emphasized the central role of affected communities, social movements, and grassroots groups in shaping effective regulation, remedy, and responses at all levels to abuses and violations of human rights involving corporate actors. We have also highlighted the need to pay attention to the different and disproportionate impacts of corporate abuses on women and others resisting marginalization and oppression, including Indigenous Peoples. In addition, we have increasingly confronted the root causes of abuses, challenging corporate capture of government institutions and decision-making spaces. We will continue challenging the current dominant economic model and promoting alternatives that prioritize human rights and environmental protection over profits.