Towards an international treaty on corporate responsibility in the field of human rights? Reflections on the first session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group

Abstract

The adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 started a process of large-scale normative development at the international, regional and domestic level. This process moved forward with the establishment by the Human Rights Council of an Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group, whose task is the development of an international legally binding instrument in this field. The Intergovernmental Working Group had its first session in July 2015, where numerous ideas on several of the issues and key challenges that the prospective treaty will face were discussed. These issues and challenges need to be analyzed in depth if an effective international instrument is to be developed.