Along with our partners, we've long supported sustainable businesses to improve lives and livelihoods. But for many communities we work with, business activity is increasingly a threat to human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Among the many challenges are the human rights abuses associated with surging demand for land and resources to produce renewable energy and the associated technologies. To protect human rights in the energy transition and for economic justice more broadly, there’s an urgent need for more accountability in business practice and particularly of transnational corporations (TNCs).
As well as promoting stronger national and regional legislation, church leaders and Christian organisations, alongside other civil society and human rights organisations, are now calling for a binding international treaty on business and human rights.
Profit before people
With the primary purpose of business being to make a profit, strong regulations are needed to ensure that in doing so, they prioritise human rights.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and other voluntary frameworks promoting more responsible business practices have succeeded in establishing that businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, but time and again, voluntary approaches have proven inadequate in preventing serious abuses or securing justice for those affected. Legally binding obligations for businesses must be set out and enforced.
As Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, General Secretary of the ACT Alliance, puts it: 'Voluntary promises are no longer enough. Governments must forge a binding UN treaty that compels businesses to respect human rights. The time for polite requests has passed—now is the moment to stand with marginalised communities and defenders of people and our planet.'
Even companies with seemingly good credentials for sustainability and labour practices, including many well-known TNCs, find it all too easy to ignore the human rights and environmental consequences of their actions. Their due diligence processes are often inadequate to prevent these or to root out potential abuses happening in their supply chains despite their roles in incentivising and perpetuating these.
People who are marginalised, such as Indigenous and other traditional communities and small scale farmers are disproportionately affected when abuses occur and usually lack the means to seek redress through justice systems, particularly when foreign companies are involved. Often, national laws fail to adequately protect them.
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Some of the world’s poorest people are losing land and livelihoods, and seeing their natural environment damaged because of under-regulated mining. I’ve heard from environmental defenders who challenge these abuses, often at the cost of their personal safety. A binding treaty at the United Nations would ensure that profits cannot be pursued at the expense of people and planet and give affected communities economic security and hope for the future.
International solution for a global problem
Among the greatest concerns is that globalisation of production and investment flows has seen rapid growth of TNCs with enormous power and complex structures and value chains. These operate across national and regional borders, often in jurisdictions with very different legal systems and levels of enforcement. National laws and international voluntary frameworks have not kept pace, creating many regulatory gaps.
The process towards a legally binding international instrument was proposed in 2014 by Ecuador and South Africa through Human Rights Council Resolution 26/9 and has long been supported by many civil society organisations. However, progress has been slow.
Countries where many TNCs are domiciled have tended to oppose the inclusion of more progressive measures, often citing progress towards the UNGPs as removing the need for regulation, supported by organisations representing business. Many countries in the global South, however, have supported a strong treaty, particularly one that reigns in the power of TNCs.
A moral issue
Will governments agree that there is an urgent need to put people before profits and do the right thing to meet their responsibilities to protect human rights - including those of citizens beyond their national borders - from irresponsible business practices?
In 2024, in the tenth year of annual negotiations, there were signs that this could happen, with accelerating progress and commitments to additional intersessional meetings to iron out issues.
Now, church leaders and Christian organisations including Christian Aid, CAFOD, Trocaire, CIDSE, Franciscans International, Bread for the World, World Young Women’s Christian Association and the Act Alliance have come together to urge governments to act in a spirit of cooperation at the 11th Session of the multilateral negotiations scheduled week commencing 20th October. The aim is to support the delivery of meaningful outcomes and ensure the primacy of International Human Rights Law over all other considerations.
Our call to action, signed by over 100 individuals and organisations helps reinforce the work of many organisations that for decades have called on governments to adopt a robust treaty.
Following the publication of Christian Aid's Call to Action statement, ACT Alliance, Trócaire and the World Young Women’s Christian Association held a webinar. Our aim was to provide an opportunity for faith leaders to share their views on how they and their communities can advocate for a more accountable private sector and connect and show solidarity with people adversely affected by corporate practices.
We heard from Bishop Martin Hayes, Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland; Udiel Miranda of COPAE in Guatemala; Dolphine Kwamboka of the World Young Women’s Christian Association; and the Rev. Dr. Elaine Neuenfeldt of ACT Alliance. Read more on the insights shared or watch back a recording of the webinar here.
This article was written by Nadia Saracini and Juan Carlos Ochoa Sánchez.
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