PBI-Canada follows the UN talks on a Binding Treaty on business and human rights in Geneva, October 20-24

Published by Brent Patterson on October 22, 2025 October 22, 2025

Photo from Rima Hassan. Dismantle Corporate Power notes that on October 19: “The day prior to the negotiations … activists and movements denounced the role of corporations like Chevron, BP, Microsoft, Amazon and Glencore in sustaining Israel’s occupation and genocide against the Palestinian people.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council is holding its 11^th negotiation session from October 20 to 24, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland to conclude three years of negotiations on a Draft Binding Treaty on business and human rights first presented in July 2023.

Peace Brigades International is a member of the Dismantle Corporate Power global campaign that backs the creation of an effective Binding Treaty.

HRDs in the Binding Treaty

The current version of the Draft Treaty makes two references to human rights defenders:

(PP13) 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;

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;

An updated Draft Treaty in 2027

In a statement endorsed by PBI-United Kingdom, ABC Colombia and Corporate Justice Coalition have noted: “The treaty process is now entering a crucial phase, with a clear Methodology and Programme of Work … and an ambitious Roadmap for 2026, including an increased number of engagements, with a view to bringing forward a revised updated draft text in 2027.”

A Binding Treaty within 2-5 years?

In a press release issued on October 21, Dismantle Corporate Power highlights: “The UN Binding Treaty focuses on obligations, not pledges. It is grounded in the principle that corporations must be held legally accountable for human rights violations and environmental destruction throughout their operations and value chains.”

That press release concludes: “In the last years the treaty process has gained new momentum with a strong participation of many countries from Africa, Latin America and Asia. For the first time, the UN organised intersessional consultations throughout 2024, expanding beyond the usual single annual negotiation week. This shift marks renewed institutional backing to the process and raises expectations that the treaty could be finalised within the next two to five years.”

Corporate lobbying against a Binding Treaty

However, Chris O’Connell from the Irish organization Trócaire and the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights also comments on the lobbying that is now undermining achieving an effective Binding Treaty: “We find ourselves back in a context where political and business leaders are talking blithely about ‘cutting red tape’ and ‘simplification’, like they are simple efficiencies, and will not come at a huge costs to workers, to indigenous peoples, to the planet. That is not credible policymaking. Deregulation profits the powerful at the cost of the vulnerable; it always has and always will.”

Canada and the Binding Treaty

Canada has been long seen as obstructionist in achieving a Binding Treaty.

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.”

Updates this week

For updates from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), go to Day 1: Monday 20 October and Day 2: Tuesday 21 October.

We continue to follow this.

Further reading

On October 24, 2024, PBI-Canada held a webinar that featured Yannick Wild, the Advocacy Coordinator for PBI-Switzerland, speaking about the Binding Treaty.

Wild explained: “The idea of the Binding Treaty was launched in 2014 with a Human Rights Council resolution with the idea to establish an Open Ended Intergovernmental Working Group to establish a legally-binding instrument to regulate the activities of transnational corporations.”

Wild also noted: “The idea was really to go beyond the voluntary basis of the Guiding Principles on business and human rights and to create this binding piece of international law because as we know business are guided by profit maximization and it’s asking a lot for them to voluntary do something to reduce those profits and some companies are actively violating human rights so definitely voluntary measures are not enough.”

He commented: “There are actually only two mentions of human rights defenders in the actual draft right now.”

“There is one in the preamble that provides the recognition of human rights defenders in preventing and seeking remedies for human rights violations committed by companies and it also formulates the obligations of states to ensure the safety of human rights defenders. Just a preamble but it establishes already the recognition that States must give to human rights defenders and this obligation to their safety.”

And then the most important article that says: “Measures by States to prevent involvement of business enterprises in human rights abuse shall include legally enforceable requirements for businesses while carrying out human rights due diligence to 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.”

Wild shared the link to the latest draft here.

Wild added: “There is opposition by some States that are skeptical about the role of human rights defenders. On the other hand, there have been also pushes to include more language about human rights defenders especially by Palestine in the last sessions.”

He further noted: “One of the bigger movements for the Binding Treaty is one that we are also part of as Peace Brigades International. The link to that movement is here. This is a coalition of 250 organizations and social movements that are affected by the activities of transnational corporations, groups that resist land grabs, mining activities, environmental destruction that are caused by transnational corporations globally. They are calling for a stronger Binding Treaty and they have also drafted their own draft treaty, the Peoples’ Treaty, where they are mentioning human rights defenders. One is that human rights lawyers and human rights defenders are allowed to act in litigation processes against transnational corporations. And the second part would be for human rights defenders to be recognized to respond to accusations against them in order to avoid criminalization and persecution.”