On shaping the EU’s position on the UN binding instrument on business and human rights, in particular on access to remedy and the protection of victims

The Committee on Development calls on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.Underlines the urgent need to approve binding and enforceable international norms to regulate the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) and their global value chains; stresses that a large proportion of human, labour and environmental rights violations are committed by TNCs based in the Global North, but operating in developing countries;

2.Recalls that people in developing countries, especially indigenous and traditional communities, smallholders and other small-scale food producers, women, human rights defenders and workers, are disproportionally affected by the human, labour and environmental rights violations committed by TNCs, which often go unpunished;

3.Calls on the Council to adopt an ambitious mandate for the Commission to fully engage in the negotiations on the UN legally binding instrument on TNCs and human rights (LBI), in accordance with the objectives stipulated by UN Human Rights Council Resolution 26/9 of 14 July 2014, which mandates those negotiations; notes that the Member States should otherwise engage in the process individually;

4.Stresses the importance that the scope of the LBI under negotiation covers TNCs and other business enterprises of a transnational character, as established by Resolution 26/9;

5.Underlines that such an LBI, to effectively protect victims and guarantee access to justice, must include, among other things, free, prior and informed consent for activities developed in indigenous territories, the right to say no, the reversal of the burden of proof, mechanisms to assure extraterritorial jurisdiction, international cooperation obligations to enforce foreign judgments, the right to information and the right to full reparation.