Toward a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Treaty Models, Contentious Issues, and Way Forward
(2025) JAMM07 20251Department of Law
Faculty of Law
- Abstract
- Efforts to regulate transnational corporations in the context of human rights are not new. They traced back to the early 1970s, when the United Nations first initiated attempts to study the impact of transnational corporations on the international development process and proposed a United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations, an initiative that ultimately stalled. A renewed attempt emerged in the late 1990s through the formulation of the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, but this effort was formally abandoned in 2005. In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business... (More)
- Efforts to regulate transnational corporations in the context of human rights are not new. They traced back to the early 1970s, when the United Nations first initiated attempts to study the impact of transnational corporations on the international development process and proposed a United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations, an initiative that ultimately stalled. A renewed attempt emerged in the late 1990s through the formulation of the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, but this effort was formally abandoned in 2005. In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, proposed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, establishing the Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework. While widely recognized as a landmark development in the field, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are non-binding and have been criticized for their limited effectiveness. Consequently, demands for a binding international legal framework have persisted.
In September 2013, Ecuador supported by a group of governments and non-governmental organizations, proposed the elaboration of an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights. In July 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 26/9, establishing an open-ended intergovernmental working group mandated to draft such a treaty. The resolution was passed with a sharply divided vote of 20 in favor, 14 against, and 13 abstentions.
Since the first session of the working group in 2015, the negotiation process has continued annually, with its tenth and most recent session taking place in 2024. Over the course of these sessions, five drafts of the proposed treaty have been produced. While each draft represents progress, many substantive issues remain unresolved. Therefore, this thesis will analyze the ongoing negotiations of the proposed treaty, with a particular focus on the different treaty models under discussion, the persistence of unsettled issues, and the opportunities and challenges of moving toward a comprehensive and binding international instrument. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9196443
- author
- Sophany, Chandara LU
- supervisor
-
- Radu Mares LU
- organization
- course
- JAMM07 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Business and Human Rights, UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights, United Nations Guiding Principles
- language
- English
- id
- 9196443
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-13 11:08:34
- date last changed
- 2025-06-13 11:08:34
@misc{9196443,
abstract = {{Efforts to regulate transnational corporations in the context of human rights are not new. They traced back to the early 1970s, when the United Nations first initiated attempts to study the impact of transnational corporations on the international development process and proposed a United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations, an initiative that ultimately stalled. A renewed attempt emerged in the late 1990s through the formulation of the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, but this effort was formally abandoned in 2005. In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, proposed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, establishing the Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework. While widely recognized as a landmark development in the field, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are non-binding and have been criticized for their limited effectiveness. Consequently, demands for a binding international legal framework have persisted.
In September 2013, Ecuador supported by a group of governments and non-governmental organizations, proposed the elaboration of an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights. In July 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 26/9, establishing an open-ended intergovernmental working group mandated to draft such a treaty. The resolution was passed with a sharply divided vote of 20 in favor, 14 against, and 13 abstentions.
Since the first session of the working group in 2015, the negotiation process has continued annually, with its tenth and most recent session taking place in 2024. Over the course of these sessions, five drafts of the proposed treaty have been produced. While each draft represents progress, many substantive issues remain unresolved. Therefore, this thesis will analyze the ongoing negotiations of the proposed treaty, with a particular focus on the different treaty models under discussion, the persistence of unsettled issues, and the opportunities and challenges of moving toward a comprehensive and binding international instrument.}},
author = {{Sophany, Chandara}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Toward a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Treaty Models, Contentious Issues, and Way Forward}},
year = {{2025}},
}