Business and Human Rights

On June 24, 2016 the United Nations’ Council on Human Rights established an intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations. The working group is tasked with the elaboration of an international legally binding instrument “to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises”. In 2017 the working group’s chairman published a non-binding paper outlining possible elements of a treaty on business and human rights; a further session is to be held in the fall of 2018. The resuming of the idea of a binding treaty for corporations is critically accompanied by civil society and in international human rights discourse.

On the occasion of a workshop organized by the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg on 19-20 July 2018, Völkerrechtsblog hosted this symposium on business and human rights which offered the opportunity to engage in a discussion on the topic beyond the confines of the workshop.