“Call to the European Union and its individual member States” -

On 26 June 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 26/9, which established an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, in order to draw up ‘an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises’. This resolution is of crucial importance in making up for a major flaw in the international system. Indeed, when enterprises with a business activity that has a transnational character are implicated in crimes and human rights violations, they can generally avoid prosecution because of the complexity of their legal structure and the absence of effective legal mechanisms. It is thus urgent to ensure that victims have access to justice. To do so, States must hold these companies responsible for their acts and for their inaction in preventing and repairing human rights violations and environmental damage throughout their value chain…Yet, since the creation of this intergovernmental working group, it is clear that the European Union and its individual Member States have failed to support this historic negotiation process, despite their declarations in favour of human rights…