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We are witnessing a world where human rights are under severe attacks and climate change represents a serious threat to people and the planet. In this context, while FIDH welcomes the progress made on the content and form of the discussions in the last two years, we all have in this room the responsibility to advance quicker towards the adoption of a robust Treaty to protect human rights and the environment from corporate harms.

In recent years, many States have developed regional and national legislative initiatives to regulate corporate behaviour in global value chains. We believe that these encouraging developments constitute an important step towards the adoption of an international and ambitious legally binding instrument. In order to do so, States need however to ensure that the Treaty contains solid provisions on prevention, liability, applicable law and jurisdiction.

Additionally, we stress the importance of guaranteeing effective access to justice and protections to individuals and communities impacted by business activities around the world – whose concerns FIDH has raised to this forum since the creation of this working group.

In light of the recent and worrying trends of deregulation seen at regional or national levels, the mandate of this group is all the more crucial to strengthen the protections of people affected everyday by business activities, including in particular environmental and human rights defenders.

We thus encourage States to constructively engage during this session, and we remain committed to provide our detailed inputs throughout the week...