 |
| Pix credit here |
In its 62nd Session Res. 62 (15-17 July 2026) extended the life and work of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights within the architecture of its special procures. The text of the Resolution
A. Reaffirmed the purposes and principles of UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (it did not, however, specify any one of the number of interpretations of either text or purpose that are currently floating around and that remain delightfully mutable even as the text of those documents, such as they are maintain the appearance, textually at least, of immutability)
B. Recalled the "block chain" of prior HRC actions (e.g.. sequential, nodal, linear, and in the style of institutions of this sort, impliedly progressive, in the sense that it is going from a starting point of problem toward an ideal state the character and approaching of which remains the province of the HRC) that brought the Council to this moment of review, reaffirmation, mandate review, and evolution
C. Recalled as well the institutional rules of conduct, authority, etc,. that have been emerging within the institutional structures of the UN
and then issued its mandate divided into five sections:
1. It requested that the OHCHR "continue to work in the area of business and human rights, including accountability and remedy." The request might be read as also implying a further request to develop, guard or perhaps expand or refine the understanding of what falls within this field as well as the normative parameters buried within its definition. The review/assessment of that work is to be undertaken within the usual performative structures of the UN: The OHCHR is requested to "convene a yearly consultation, involving representatives of States and other stakeholders, regarding challenges, good practices and the implementation of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights" and to report on their collective work.
2. Having provided its mandate to the OHCHR, it then turned to the special procedure through which some of this work is to be undertaken. The "Working Group shall continue to guide the work of the Forum on Business and Human Rights and to prepare its annual meetings, and invites the Working Group to chair the Forum on Business and Human Rights and to submit a report." The relationship between the OHCHR and the Working Group is worth noting. The OHCHR convenes, and the Working Group guides the annual consultation in the field. It doe snot suggest that the OHCHR necessarily treat the Annual Forum as the annual consultation, though that appears to have been the long standing practice. It does provide some distance between the scope of the work of the Working Group ("guide the work of the Forum") and the OHCHR ("continue to work in the area of business and human rights, including accountability and remedy"). This however merely emphasizes the nature of the role of special procedures within the Geneva UN architecture, but is worth noting that as the Geneva UN organs put it "The special procedures of the Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with mandates to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective. They are unpaid and their tenure is limited to a maximum of six years. As of November 2025, there are 46 thematic and 13 country mandates." (here). These are experts with influence, and some authority within the UN system. That makes them significant from the perspective of hierarchies of the management of collective human systems; beyond that lie the complexities of culture, politics and social structures--not law, nor compulsion, nor even expectations of acquiescence to whatever it is that is produced as guidance. None of this suggests skepticism or criticism, but it does serve to remind actors of their own agency and of the limits of concepts of non-mandatory guidance structures in the complicated dialectics of global business and human rights. And it serves to remind as well that experts, and expertise, is neither conveyed by an appointment to an administrative organ (though there it can be amplified and projected onto the masses) nor by any other socially recognized ritual, performance etc..In that respect it is worth recalling the origins of the term expert, from the "late 14c., "having had experience; skillful," from Old French expert, espert "experienced, practiced, skilled" and directly from Latin expertus (contracted from *experitus), "tried, proved, known by experience," past participle of experiri "to try, test." In that sense one might be tempted to add an inversion of the hierarchy of expertise back to those who experience adverse impacts rather than those trained to find it in others as something more than the annual performance of folkloric ritual followed by instruction.
3. Thus conceived, as it has been from the start of its operations with the endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles in 2011, the mandate of the Working Group is extended.
4. The HRC then requests that the OHCHR provide budgetary support for the work of the Working Group within the confines of its mandate. That is probably the most challenging element of this HRC Resolution for two reasons. One follows from the current climate of budgetary crisis that has settled on the UN system (). The other is that whatever finds are ultimately contributed will continue to help shape the underlying principles, premises and expectations of the work undertaken with those funds. There is no reason to suggest that the traditional critique of the Global South about the connection between funding and control previously exercised by the great funding states of the global north will change when the leading forces of the Global South substitute themselves, their money, and their ideological ambitions for those of the prior donor class. Of course, the official discourse ghosts this; as well it should. The reality, however, survives. And with it the consequential trajectories of further rupturing the critical convergence role of instruments like special procedures as instruments of normative unification.
5. Lastly, the HRC, as it has for a long time, seeks to use performative elements to preserve an appearance of convergence through the institutionalization of identity and status based fracturing on the basis of which it is possible to organize a thoroughly comprehensive taxonomy of representation for purposes of the sort of consultation performance that is the essence of the operation of the UN ("paying particular
attention to regional balance and ensuring participation of affected individuals and communities"). This is no critique--such structures are essential elements of consultative democracy especially within non-liberal democratic systems. It is to suggest, however, that appearance and structure is only the initial element of deep and effective consultation. This is undertaken in a way that suggests an effort to find the positive in challenge in this case financial challenge by emphasizing the use of hybrid mechanisms for growing the participation in the Forum--a small of which will touch on participants, the greater part of which might affect the reach of the Forum to its passive audiences--that is those who must receive the wisdom elaborated during the consultation.
 |
| Pix credit here |
I join in welcoming this HRC Resolution; look forward to receiving and responding to the OHCHR's work in the area of businesses and human rights, and to engaging, sometimes sharply, with the ongoing work and efforts at guidance of its special procedure, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights.
The text of the Resolution may be accessed in the official languages of the UN here and follows below in English.
Human Rights Council
Sixty-second session
15 June–7 July 2026
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Albania, Argentina,* Austria,* Belgium,* Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia,*
Cyprus, Denmark,* Estonia, Finland,* France, Germany,* Greece,* Guatemala,*
Iceland, Ireland,* Italy, Japan, Latvia,* Liechtenstein,* Lithuania,* Luxembourg,*
Malta,* Mexico, Montenegro,* Netherlands (Kingdom of the), North Macedonia,
Norway,* Paraguay,* Peru,* Poland,* Portugal,* Republic of Korea,
Romania,* Russian Federation,* Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,* Switzerland, Thailand,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Uruguay*: draft
resolution
62/… Business and human rights
The Human Rights Council,
Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Recalling Human Rights Council resolutions 8/7 of 18 June 2008, 17/4 of 16 June
2011, 21/5 of 27 September 2012, 26/22 of 27 June 2014, 32/10 of 30 June 2016, 35/7 of 22
June 2017, 38/13 of 6 July 2018, 44/15 of 17 July 2020 and 53/3 of 12 July 2023, and
Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/69 of 20 April 2005, and noting Council
resolution 26/9 of 26 June 2014, all concerning the issue of human rights and transnational
corporations and other business enterprises,
Recalling also its resolutions 5/1, on institution-building of the Human Rights
Council, and 5/2, on the Code of Conduct for Special Procedures Mandate-holders of the
Human Rights Council, of 18 June 2007, and stressing that mandate holders shall discharge
their duties in accordance with those resolutions and the annexes thereto,
1. Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to
continue to work in the area of business and human rights, including accountability and
remedy, and to convene a yearly consultation, involving representatives of States and other
stakeholders, regarding challenges, good practices and the implementation of the Guiding
Principles on Business and Human Rights, and to submit a report thereon to the Human
Rights Council at its seventy-first session;
2. Decides that the Working Group shall continue to guide the work of the ForumUnited Nations A/HRC/62/L.1
on Business and Human Rights and to prepare its annual meetings, and invites the Working
Group to chair the Forum on Business and Human Rights and to submit a report on the
* State not a member of the Human Rights Council.
General Assembly Distr.: Limited
25 June 2026
Original: English
A/HRC/62/L.1
2
proceedings and thematic recommendations of the Forum to the Human Rights Council for
its consideration;
3. Also decides to extend the mandate of the Working Group on the issue of
human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, as set out by the
Human Rights Council in its resolution 17/4, and with due consideration of its resolution
53/3, for a period of three years;
4. Requests the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner to provide the
Working Group with all the resources and assistance necessary to fulfil its mandate
effectively, including its role in guiding the work of the Forum on Business and Human
Rights;
5. Also requests the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner to provide the
Forum, in a transparent manner, with all the services and facilities necessary, bearing in mind
the need for a hybrid format and the growing participation in the Forum, and paying particular
attention to regional balance and ensuring participation of affected individuals and
communities.
No comments:
Post a Comment