UN Binding Treaty: Friends of the Earth report analyses corporate “influence” in the negotiations
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“The TNC Lobby: Foxes in the Henhouse”, 18 October 2025
The TNC Lobby: Foxes in the Henhouse exposes how transnational corporations like Chevron, Shell and Total convert their economic might into political power. Today, these corporations accused of human rights violations are able to shape the very rules meant to restrain them as a result of a global architecture of impunity they helped build…
The report follows the money and corporate influence into multilateral halls, detailing how the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) function as the corporate lobby (“TNC Lobby”) inside the United Nations, specifically in the negotiations for the UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights. We argue that allowing corporate lobbyists to co-write the rules of regulation is an absolute conflict of interest that puts the treaty and communities affected by corporate crimes at risk…
[The Business and Human Rights Centre invited the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Organisation of Employers to respond to allegations in the report. They did not provide a response.]