For many years, various organizations that comprise the Corporate Accountability Working Group (CAWG) of the International Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) have been working collectively to demonstrate how certain corporate activity can undermine human rights and harm communities and groups affected by their operations. CAWG members have been engaging collectively and conducting advocacy stressing the need to develop binding regulations to hold corporations accountable for the human rights impacts that their activities cause. We have been closely following the process initiated at the United Nations (UN) through the Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 26/9 to create an inter-governmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (IGWG) with the mandate to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate corporate activities. To contribute to the work of the UN IGWG, CAWG members presented two collective submissions, in 2016 and 2017, related to the main issues that a binding treaty should contain. In addition to these submissions, ESCR-Net and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) developed 10 key proposals for the treaty in 2016. In 2017, ESCR-Net membersformulated three advocacy positions on corporate capture, gender and human rights defenders (HRDs).
This collective submission is presented in response to the questionnaire initiated by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to receive information for the preparation of the thematic report “Business and Human Rights: Inter-American Standards”. It is the result of the work of several of our members in the Inter-American region, coordinated by ESCR-Net CAWG. Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense – AIDA (regional), Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales – CELS (Argentina), Colectivo de Abogados Jose Alvear Restrepo – CAJAR (Colombia), Comite Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida (Colombia), Conectas Direitos Humanos (Brazil), Due Process of Law Foundation – DPLF (regional), International Federation for Human Rights – FIDH (international), FoodFirst International Action Network – FIAN (international), International Accountability Project – IAP (international) and Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research – PODER (Mexico) are the members that contributed to this document, which has been revised and also endorsed by the following members: Center for International Environmental Law – CIEL (International), Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos – FOCO/INPADE (Argentina), Justiça Global (Brazil), Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens – MAB (Brazil), National Union of Domestic Employees – NUDE (Trinidad and Tobago) and Terra de Direitos (Brazil). We hope this document is well received and useful to inform the work of IACHR, especially through the work of the Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (SRESCER) in developing the thematic report.
Read the complete report here.