In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Business & Human Rights

11 Sep

[Markus Krajewski holds the Chair in Public and International Law at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.] As noted by Surya Deva in this blog, the 2020 Second Revised Draft for Legally Binding Instrument (LBI) on Business and Human rights is “negotiation-ready”. However, he wonders if states and the European Union are ready for negotiations. This contribution argues that the EU should be...

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10 Sep

[Daniel Uribe is Programme Office of the Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Gender (SDCCG) Programme of the South Centre. The views contained in this brief are attributable to the author/s and do not represent the institutional views of the South Centre or its Member States. Any mistake or omission in this study is the sole responsibility of the author/s.] On the 6th of August 2020,...

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10 Sep

[Olivier De Schutter is the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He was until 2020 a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.] One of the innovative contributions of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, endorsed by consensus within the Human Rights Council in June 2011, was to include the practice of human rights due diligence as part of businesses'...

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09 Sep

[Elizabeth Mangenje and Timothy Fish Hodgson are Legal Advisors at the International Commission of Jurists.] The newest draft of the “Legally Binding Instrument to Regulate, in International Human Rights Law, the Activities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises” was published in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, a public health emergency which has had extensive impacts on human rights globally. In the context of the right to...

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09 Sep

[Sarah Joseph is Professor of Human Rights Law and Mary Keyes is Director of the Law Futures Centre at Griffith University.] The draft treaty on business and human rights signals an intention to facilitate cross-border human rights litigation against businesses and associated cross-border cooperation. To date, most instances of such litigation have been characterised by protracted procedural battles regarding matters of private international law (especially...

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08 Sep

[Jelena Aparac is lecturer and legal advisor in international law with a focus on Business and Human Rights in Armed Conflicts. Dr. Aparac is also an expert member of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries.] The Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Businesses with Respect to Human Rights (“IGWG”) was mandated by the Human Rights Council (res 26/9) to...

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08 Sep

[Surya Deva is an Associate Professor at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. He co-edited Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Context and Contours (CUP, 2017) with David Bilchitz.]  The Second Revised Draft (2020 Draft) marks an important step in negotiating a business and human rights (BHR) treaty. In comparison to the Zero Draft and the Revised Draft (2019 Draft),...

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07 Sep

[Justine Nolan is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at UNSW Sydney and a Visiting Scholar with the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.] Global supply chains affect every aspect of our lives. It is hard to overstate the impact of supply chains on the economy and people’s lives. Trade, production, investment, employment relations and labour itself have drastically changed with the growth of supply...

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07 Sep

[Carlos Lopez is a Senior Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists.] A second revised Draft of an international treaty on business and human rights has been released by the Chairperson of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with respect to Human Rights (OEIGWG), established by UN Human Rights Council resolution 26/9 .  In...

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21 Aug

[Julianne Hughes-Jennett is a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s London office and the head of Quinn Emanuel’s Business and Human Rights Group. Laila Hamzi is a senior associate in Quinn Emanuel’s London office. Her practice focuses on international arbitration, public international law and business and human rights. Ram Mashru is an associate in Quinn Emanuel’s London office.  His practice focuses on...

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08 Aug

The Gambia initiated legal proceedings in the United States a few months ago against Facebook, in order to compel the company to hand over information related to its ongoing case against Myanmar, relating to the Rohingya, before the International Court of Justice.  This legal strategy is in accordance with a provision of U.S. law - §1782 of the U.S. Code, a federal statute which permits the compelling of testimony,...

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04 Aug

In 2018, Latin American states adopted the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean”, also known as the Escazú Agreement, for the city in Costa Rica were it was signed. The treaty sets out an obligation for Member States to legislate on these three matters under specific conditions, within the broader context of...

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