PBI-Canada to monitor 10th session of Binding Treaty that aims to protect the safety of human rights defenders
Photo: Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, the general coordinator of the PBI-Honduras accompanied Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), is part of the campaign supporting the creation of a Binding Treaty.
The 10th session of the Open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (OEIGWG) is now scheduled to take place December 16-20, 2024. It was originally to take place October 21-25, 2024, but the Mission of Ecuador has unilaterally changed the date.
OPEN LETTER to the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the United Nations.
PBI support for a Binding Treaty
Peace Brigades International (PBI) has long supported the OEIGWG negotiating a Binding Treaty on business and human rights.
This past June, PBI-Switzerland highlighted at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva:
“The Guiding Principles, being voluntary, do not impose obligations on companies or investors. The working group, in its report, highlights the need for a legislative framework to regulate investors. PBI, as part of the Global Campaign, emphasizes the need for a binding international instrument according to resolution 26/9, which establishes effective mechanisms of legal accountability for transnationals and access to justice for affected communities.”
A recent draft of the Binding Treaty (as of July 2023) states:
“The States Parties to this (Legally Binding Instrument),
Emphasizing that civil society actors, including human rights defenders, have an important and legitimate role in promoting the respect of human rights by business enterprises, and in preventing, mitigating and in seeking effective remedy for business related human rights abuses, and that States have the obligation to take all appropriate measures to ensure an enabling and safe environment for the exercise of such role;
Have agreed as follows:
6.2. State Parties shall adopt appropriate legislative, regulatory, and other measures to:
(d) promote the active and meaningful participation of individuals and groups, such as trade unions, civil society, non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples, and community-based organizations, in the development and implementation of laws, policies and other measures to prevent the involvement of business enterprises in human rights abuse.
6.4. Measures to achieve the ends referred to in Article 6.2 shall include legally enforceable requirements for business enterprises to undertake human rights due diligence as well as such supporting or ancillary measures as may be needed to ensure that business enterprises while carrying out human rights due diligence:
(e) protect the safety of human rights defenders, journalists, workers, members of indigenous peoples, among others, as well as those who may be subject to retaliation…”
Logo of the Global Campaign that includes as its members Peace Brigades International, Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo – CCAJAR, and the Comision Interclesial de Justicia y Paz, Colombia.
Canadian opposition to the Binding Treaty
On a PBI-United Kingdom webinar in July 2020, PBI-Colombia accompanied Yessika Hoyos from the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CCAJAR) commented: “Many companies together with states have been blocking this issue.”
Following the 6th session in October 2020, the Global Campaign of 250 social movements supporting the Binding Treaty highlighted: “the countries whose economies rely heavily on transnational corporations with overseas operations who have always opposed this UN process, such as the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia.”
In October 2021, just prior to the 7th session, Ana María Suárez of FIAN International, stated that the US, which had boycotted the process along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand up until then, announced it would be participating in the meeting.
Significantly, in March 2022, the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) wrote to Canada’s foreign affairs minister to note concern that at the October 2021 session Canada endorsed a US initiative to “explor(e) alternative instruments, binding or non-binding” as an alternative to the current UN Binding Treaty.
And in October 2023, Via Campesina noted: “The countries who have not engaged or directly reject and have tried to stop the process are the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia, as well as other highly industrialized countries with a high number of TNCs [transnational corporations] headquartered in their territories.”
Peter MacDougall became the new Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations Office at Geneva on August 26, 2024.
Upcoming webinars
On October 3 at 8 am ET, we will tune into this webinar organized by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. You can register for this webinar by clicking here.
And stay-tuned for more on a webinar Peace Brigades International-Canada is planning that will link the Binding Treaty process with the language needed to protect human rights defenders in other upcoming processes, mostly notably the COP16 Biodiversity conference that will take place in Cali, Colombia (October 21 to November 1) and the COP29 Climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan (November 11-22).
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