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Key takeaways

• Fernanda Hopenhaym Cabrera, Member and Vice-Chair of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (Keynote Speaker): The UNGPs and a legally binding treaty are complementary components of a "smart mix" of measures needed to protect affected communities.
• Carmen Blanco, Friends of the Earth Europe: EU legislation cannot substitute for an international binding treaty with direct corporate obligations. Strategy must focus on building the treaty "from below" so that affected communities' experience shapes international law.
• Enrique Fernández-Maldonado Mujica, Perú EQUIDAD: A legally binding UN treaty is needed as a common baseline to solve supply chain accountability, enforce parent company responsibility, establish extraterritorial obligations, and prevent regulatory fragmentation in the Global South.
• Ana Maria Suarez Franco, FIAN International: To ensure meaningful access to justice, a binding treaty must mandate, among others, extraterritorial jurisdiction, reversed burdens of proof, community rights to information and prior consultation (including the right to say no), and independent legal liability separate from mere due diligence compliance checklists.

Key takeaways

• Mercy Mutemi, Oversight Lab: A binding treaty could help address accountability gaps by setting common standards and making states’ obligations translate into clearer obligations for companies across jurisdictions. It could also create a more inclusive process, bringing the experiences of affected communities into global standard-setting.
• Fernanda Campagnucci, The InternetLab: A binding treaty could strengthen national and regional efforts by setting a common baseline and supporting due diligence, risk assessment and prevention.
• Bríd Brennan, TNI: National and regional action remains important, but stronger global standards are needed to address these issues across jurisdictions. The binding treaty could strengthen corporate accountability through provisions on prevention, liability, jurisdiction and mutual legal assistance. It represents a golden opportunity for engagement to get an ambitious text.

In October 2025, the Business and Human Rights Centre and FORUM-ASIA held a series of webinars titled “Treaty-making in troubled times” to continue spotlighting critical issues and amplifying the voices of civil society organisations in support of the UN binding treaty process during this critical period.

In the current context of regulatory rollbacks, the first webinar in this year’s series reflected on the importance of regulation and highlight the impact of deregulation on affected people in the Global South to hold companies accountable over human rights abuses. The second webinar examined what it means to create a victim-centred treaty, and how the treaty can address systemic and intersectional vulnerabilities.

Catch up on the 2025 treaty blog series here.