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Article

8 Jul 2015

Author:
European Coalition for Corporate Justice

UN Treaty on Business & Human Rights negotiations Day 2: EU disengagement & Lack of consensus on scope

The first day of discussions ended in general uncertainty about whether the EU and few accompanying Member States would be participating in Tuesday’s sessions. The EU’s intervention asking for two extra conditions to be added to the work plan, (one being broadening the Treaty’s scope to include all business), and the political pressure it created were received with broad discontent. At the same time, constructive EU participation and good faith engagement are necessary for this UN process to deliver meaningful results...To general relief, Tuesday’s sessions started with the EU and few Member States in the meeting room. Sadly, the satisfaction was short-lived as things quickly took a more sour turn. During the morning panel on scope...the EU and Member States remained unexplainably silent. The situation worsened in the afternoon, when they decided not to show up at all...On the issue of scope (regarding whether or not the Treaty should look at TNCs or both TNCs and all other business enterprises), we saw some disagreement among states while views of experts and CSOs were more convergent...On the issue of the scope of human rights to be covered, a very strong consensus among participants could be noted...

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