We would like to express our concern at the way the [December 2017 update to the Thun Group's Discussion] paper’s revision was communicated. An email message from the Thun Group’s convener Christian Leitz... stated that the Thun Group “agreed to clarify some of the statements in its Discussion Paper published in January 2017 that had led to misunderstandings” (our emphasis). The clear implication here is that any misunderstandings are not on the part of the Thun Group banks that signed the paper, but on the part of the paper’s critics.

... We welcome the clear acknowledgement in the revised paper that banks can contribute to adverse human rights abuses via their finance... [however] this acknowledgement does not address our initial concerns regarding the paper... [that the] paper’s underlying assumption [is] that banks do not generally contribute to human rights impacts through their finance. While the paper now acknowledges clearly that such contribution may occur “in exceptional circumstances”, the underlying assumption that it does not generally occur remains unchanged... The revised paper’s assertion that banks may contribute to human rights abuses through their finance only under “exceptional circumstances" suggests the Thun Group has not fully taken on board the subsequent feedback and guidance received from the UN Working Group, the Office of the High Commissioner and Professor Ruggie... [W]e consider that further discussion papers or other publications from Thun Group will only play a constructive role in these discussions if it fully takes on board the advice of the UN Working Group... We urge the Thun Group to show that it has learned lessons from its January 2017 paper by developing such a process for consultation and review.