11th UN Forum on business and human rights

Interpretation in English, French and Spanish, provided by DOCIP for Indigenous Peoples

Organized by the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations at Geneva
 (Chair-Rapporteur of the OEIGWG)
 
Brief description of the session:
The open-ended intergovernmental working group (OEIGWG) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights was established by HRC Resolution 26/9 of June 2014, with the concrete mandate “to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises”.
Since 2015, the Working Group has held eight sessions, with increasing participation by States and other relevant stakeholders taking part in the discussions and deliberations. In the last 5 years, the process has incorporated a pragmatic, balanced, inclusive, and progressive approach in complete synergy with other existing frameworks.
Significant progress has been achieved in this process. It is possible to improve victims' access to justice and effective remedy through binding regulations that complement and reinforce voluntary norms such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and other non-binding international standards proposed by the ILO and the OECD.
However, further work is still required to define the fundamental aspects to adopt an inclusive and balanced legally binding instrument. Broad and active participation of all the actors, particularly of States, is necessary to enrich the process with their vision and contributions and to build on and achieve consensus.
 
Key objectives of the session:

• Facilitate the stock-taking and lesson-sharing between governments and other relevant actors, on how binding and non-binding measures could complement and reinforce each other, in light of the conclusions of the 8th session of the Working Group and the recommendations of the Chair-Rapporteur, and the concrete recent legal developments, trends, and good practices in preventing and addressing business-related human rights abuses.
• Explore the opportunities provided by the LBI to make concrete progress towards the protection of human rights in the context of business activities, improve accountability, provide justice and effective remedies for victims, and strengthen the complementary implementation of the UNGPs.

 
Key questions:

• Which are the main elements that the future LBI should include in its provisions to promote and facilitate respect and protection of human rights in the context of business activities?
• In terms of the process, how States and all relevant stakeholders could contribute constructively to build consensus around the draft text of the LBI?

Background to the discussion:
Ecuador, in its capacity of Chair-Rapporteur of the OEIGWG, submitted the Zero Draft of the LBI in 2018, the Revised Draft (Rev.1) in 2019, the Second Revised Draft (Rev.2) in 2020, and the Third Revised Draft (Rev.3) in 2021. The Rev.3 sought to further align its provisions with existing instruments and frameworks, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the ILO Tripartite Declaration on Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, and other relevant ILO instruments, as well as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, among others, under a pragmatic and progressive approach.
The 3rd revised draft of the legally binding instrument presented to the 7th session, with the addition of the compilation of the concrete textual proposals submitted by States in that session, was the basis for the discussions during the 8th session, held in October 2022. Additionally, the Chair-Rapporteur presented an informal contribution on some specific articles of the text to help advance discussions and facilitate negotiations. The Chair-Rapporteur outlined the inter-sessional steps to advance the work on the elaboration of the LBI in the Recommendations of the 8th session.
The report and documents of the 8th and previous sessions can be found at https://bit.ly/3GjWUCW