Side Event at the 2nd Session of the Intergovernmental Working Group for a Comprehensive Business and Human Rights Treaty: Exploring the Content of the Proposed Treaty on Business and Human Rights--Academic Reflections

EXPLORING THE CONTENT OF THE PROPOSED TREATY ON BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: ACADEMIC REFLECTIONS
Side event organized by Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Thursday, 27 October 2016 (1-3pm)
Room XXVII, Palais des Nations

 The first two sessions of the open-ended intergovernmental working group (OEIGWG) ‘shall be dedicated to conducting constructive deliberations on the content, scope, nature and form of the future international instrument’. The OEIGWG Chairperson-Rapporteur is then expected to ‘prepare elements for the draft legally binding instrument for substantive negotiations at the commencement of the third session’.

Against this backdrop, this panel – comprising several academics working in the area of business and rights – will discuss concrete options about the content of the proposed treaty in order to enable states, businesses and civil society organisations taking an informed position on the treaty. Issues such as the following will be discussed: 

 the scope of the treaty in terms of regulatory targets and subject matter
 the nature of direct human rights obligations of business
 states’ human rights obligations, including extraterritorial obligations
 corporate responsibilities within complex group structures and global supply chains  overcoming barriers in access to remedy
 types of possible sanctions and enforcement mechanisms

The panel will draw upon a book project lead by Prof Surya Deva and Prof David Bilchitz, who have assembled a group of leading scholars from all over the world (see below the list of contributors) to write chapters on several complex and contentious legal issues related to the treaty content and to develop draft proposals in this regard. This book will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.

Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Context and Contours
Surya Deva and David Bilchitz (editors)

Forthcoming book’s table of contents
Introduction – David Bilchitz
PART I: NEED FOR AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1. 1)  Lessons from the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations for the Current Treaty
   Initiative – Khalil Hamdani and Lorraine Ruffing
   
2. 2)  The Value-added of a Treaty to Regulate Transnational Corporations and Other Business
   Enterprises: Moving Forward Strategically – Penelope Simons
   
3. 3)  Coherence, Mutual Assurance and the Rationale for a Treaty on Business and Human
   Rights – Sheldon Leader
   

PART II: PRINCIPLES AND POLITICS SHAPING THE TREATY’S CONTOURS 4)
– Larry Catá Backer

5. 5)  The Need for a Biding Treaty: Expectations on Counter Hegemony and the Role of Civil
   Society – Daniel Aragao and Manoela Roland
   
6. 6)  Scope of the Proposed Business and Human Rights Treaty: Navigating through
   Normativity, Law and Politics – Surya Deva
   

PART III: NATURE AND EXTENT OF CORPORATE OBLIGATIONS

7. 7)  Corporate Obligations and a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: A Constitutional
   Law Model? – David Bilchitz
   
8. 8)  Human Rights, Responsibilities and Due Diligence: Key Issues for a Treaty – Robert
   McCorquodale and Lise Smit
   
9. 9)  Human Rights and Global Corporate Supply Chains: Is Effective Supply Chain
   Accountability Possible? – Justine Nolan
   

10) Legalizing Human Rights Due Diligence and the Separation of Entities Principle – RaduMares

PART IV: ROLE OF STATES IN ENFORCING HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS

11)Towards Human Rights Legal Liability for Business Enterprises: The Role of An International Treaty – Carlos Lopez

12) Regulatory Obligations in a Complex World: States’ Extraterritorial Obligations Related
to Business and Human Rights – Sigrun Skogly
13) The Impact of a Business and Human Rights Treaty on Investment Law and Arbitration –Peter Muchlinski

PART V: IMPROVING ACCESS TO REMEDIES FOR VICTIMS

14) Access to Remedy: Treaty Talk and the Terms of a New Accountability Accord – Erika George and Lisa Laplante
15)Making Remedies Work: Envisioning a Treaty-Based System of Effective – Beth Stephens
16) The Potential Role of Criminal Law in a Business and Human Rights Treaty? – Shane Darcy
Conclusion: How to Move Forward by Connecting the Dots – Surya Deva

Side event speakers

Principled Pragmatism in the Elaboration of a Comprehensive Treaty on Business and

Human Rights

Moderator: Panellists:

Surya Deva, Associate Professor, Law School, City University of Hong Kong

1. David Bilchitz, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg
2. Robert McCorquodale, Director, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
3. Manoela Roland, Assistant Professor, Federal University of Juiz de Fora
4. Beth Stephens, Professor, Rutgers Law School

From the floor: Participants and other chapter authors