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Article

19 Oct 2016

Author:
Friends of the Earth International

Friends of the Earth International calls for legally binding UN treaty on Transnational corporations and human rights

From 24 to 28 October, UN negotiations that could provide a historic opportunity for justice and an end to corporate impunity will resume in Geneva.  The talks are taking place in a critical context of global climate, biodiversity, financial, food and humanitarian crises, for which transnational corporations are largely responsible, but which impact the vulnerable most, mainly people in the Global South. Companies’ operations systematically result in environmental crimes, and the intimidation of activists defending their rights and the environment...A legally binding instrument to control transnational corporations with respect to human rights and provide victims of corporate abuse with justice is long overdue...Many transnational corporations are richer and more powerful than the states trying to regulate them. For decades, they have successfully managed to block the emergence of binding regulation through heavy lobbying and corporate capture of key decision-making processes. As a result businesses are rarely held to account and communities and the environment continue to pay the price...[W]e are calling for an international legally binding treaty to hold transnational corporations to account and end their impunity for human rights abuses and environmental crimes, and to give people access to justice...

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