Descarga aquíLa Coalición por la Paz y la Ética (CPE) ha publicado para su distribución general la siguiente declaración al comienzo de la quinta sesión del IGWG: (Inglés acqui)
The Coalition for Peace and Ethics has released for general distribution the following statement on the start of the 5th Session of the IGWG: (en español aqui)The Coalition for Peace and Ethics salutes IGWG and those at the center of its work.We acknowledge the work of their allies.We appreciate the tremendous work and good faith of all of the participants and respect the objectives toward which these efforts are directed.The Coalition for Peace and Ethics shares with those influence drivers many of the fundamental principles that have directed their efforts and encourage them to continue a strong adherence to their further development.
We further regret that the process of development of the draft has tended to marginalize both the sustained engagement of the objects of the Treaty's purpose, and made it difficult for non-governmental organizations without resources and capacity to effectively participate in the process of the elaboration of a draft Treaty, except, as audience and to some extent, as "focus group."The Coalition for Peace and Ethics regrets that the process, for reasons that are inherent in the politics of business and human rights after the endorsement of the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, has produced the sort of well managed factionalism through which both the "Zero Draft" and the current Draft Legally Binding Instrument" were elaborated.The Coalition for Peace and Ethics welcomes the openness of the IGWG to receive comments on its work and further on its progress toward producing a draft Treaty that will actually be circulated as such.
Lastly, the Coalition for Peace and Ethics agrees international law might contribute, in some specific ways, to evolution of norms and standards against which the human rights and sustainability consequences of the economic activities of states as well as of business enterprises might be assessed and managed.On the basis thereof, the Coalition for Peace and Ethics:1. Cautions the IGWG and its allies of the dangers of proceeding with the development of the Draft and its future incarnations without deep and effective consultation with the large and varied communities of actors that have neither the resources nor the capacity nor that status to sit at the principal table where decisions about the Treaty drafting are being made. To the extent that the Treaty project is viewed as another elite project, it runs the danger of losing both legitimacy and authority among the classes of individuals for the protection of which the work of the IGWG is directed.2. Cautions the IGWG and its allies against the temptation of drafting the Legally Binding Instrument in a manner that is accessible to rights holders. As drafted the Treaty may appear to some to be little more than a means through which control over the protection, mitigation, and remediation of rights is effectively delegated to organizations (including states, enterprises, and non governmental organizations) who would act for rights holders. As written, the language and the structures are complex, remote, and incapable of easy understanding by those most in need of its protections.3. Regrets that the Draft Legally Binding Instrument continues what we believe to be its (no doubt popular) position with respect to the construction of a class of rights holders--"victims"--through which the obligation of the Treaty will be operationalized.4. Cautions against the decisions, written into various key potions of the Draft, to abandon effective efforts toward the construction of coherent and coordinated standards. The result will only increase the principal use of the any resulting Treaty as a play book for judiciary and law shopping among adhering states in ways that will make the obligations written into the Treaty even more remote from rights holders. The Treaty ought not to be constructed as a means of empowering lawyers; nor should it be framed as a means through which lawyers from developing states can effectively strip the courts of developing states of effective control of the legal development of rights within their domestic legal orders. Neither of these dangers is adequately addressed in the draft Treaty.5. Welcomes the efforts to introduce a legal regulation of human rights due diligence within the Treaty framework. But it cautions against the porous nature of the current approach that will produce fracture rather than coherence that will in its effects undo the efforts to unify the practice of human rights due diligence among enterprises and states irrespective of location and without regard to national deviations in the normative basis of such due diligence.6. Encourages the IGWG to take its own suggestion and reconsider the basis of the rights afforded to individuals away from a statutory basis and toward a harm basis. It is to be regreted that the IGWG has again sought to revisit the approach of legal liability abandoned after 2005 and the Norms project. Whatever its value at the time, the international community had spoken to some extent, and the plausibility of constructing a legally viable framework on the basis of standards of dubious legality and even less wide acceptance as law in many jurisdictions will tend to serve as a distraction at best, and a means of unsuccessfully ending this project at worst.7. Suggests that, as written, the Draft Legally Binding Instrument appears better suited as a framework instrument than as a legally binding instrument that is ready for transposition, as such, into the legal orders of adhering states.8. Regrets the continued efforts to build into the Treaty framework some sort of distinction between transnational and other enterprises. The effort suggests, no doubt without basis, efforts to sneak items of national advantage into a treaty that is meant to celebrate multi-lateral solidarity. That alone is enough cause for regret. The extent to which such differences no longer matter, the continued reference to transnational versus local enterprises creates substantial areas of ambiguity that will not help the Treaty project achieve its aims.
9. Encourages the IGWG with its future work on transforming this draft into a document that is more specific, more accessible, less elite driven, and more compatible with a view that all actors in the process of embedding human rights in economic activity are entitled to respect and inclusion in the process of building a treaty framework for its important goals.10. Advises the IGWG to more vigorously center issues of sustainability, including issues of environmental, bio-diversity and climate change within the broader framework of human rights enhancing obligations imposed on both business and states. The failure to acknowledge and embed the human rights aspects of sustainability may, in effect, constitute a human rights wrong. The failure to address this may significantly undermine the value and authority of any Treaty that emerges from this process.11. Warns the IGWG that the failure to consider the role and effectiveness of data driven governance standard setting and implementation modalities may seriously impede the operationalization of the Treaty and its framework. Data driven governance, quantitative ratings based social credit regimes ought to play an important part in the construction of a business and human rights legal framework. It is essential for accountability not just with respect to enterprises but also with respect to states on which the primary legal obligation for respect of law and its enforcement continues to rest.12. Regrets that the continued differentiation between "transnational" and other enterprises continues to find its way into critical portions of the Treaty draft. CPE encourages the IGWG to consider elimination of this unnecessary distinction, if only to avoid the intimation that the Treaty is made to favor the national interests and economic protectionism of some states at the expense of others.
The Coalition for Peace and Ethics applauds the work of the many actors who have helped bring this project to this stage of development. It encourages a broader engagement, especially among stakeholders who generally tend to be ignored by the powerful actors who have tended to treat this project as slightly more proprietary than is necessary. Leadership and guidance is not ownership, and respect for that distinction may spell the difference between a treaty that is widely accepted and one that is widely ignored.With respect to these observations and comments, and for the purpose of aiding in the consideration of issues that might be usefully considered in moving the Treaty project forward, the Coalition has offered to the IGWG its Treaty Project Working Group's Commentary on the U.N. Inter-Governmental Working Group (Geneva) 2019 Draft 'Legally Binding Instrument to Regulate, in International Human Rights Law, The Activities of Corporations and Other Business Enterprises' (Textual and Conceptual Analysis). Full Print Version HERE: 14-2_Treaty_Special_Issue_2019; online (ISSN 2689-0291) and in print format for download (ISSN 2689-0283 (print)). Either may be accessed by clicking THIS LINK HERE.Coalition for Peace and Efforts Treaty Project Working GroupLarry Catá BackerFlora Sapio3 October 2019
Black(white)(red)lists have been an instrument of regulatory management for a long time.The city was filled with murder and there was no counting the executions or setting a limit on them. . . .Finally one of the younger men, Gaius Metellus, ventured to ask Sulla in the senate at what point this terrible state of affairs was to end. . . . “We are not asking you,” he said, “to pardon those whom you have decided to kill; all we ask is that you should free from suspense those whom you have decided not to kill.” Sulla replied that he was not sure yet whom he would spare, and Metellus at once said: “Then let us know whom you intend to punish.” . . . Then immediately, and without consulting any magistrate, Sulla published a list of eighty men to be condemned. (Plutarch, The Fall of the Roman Republic, Sulla, ¶ 31).In the West it has long been common for leaders of states (or those whose leadership guides the state) to establish proscription lists. * * * Chinese history is also full of lists created by officials and others. They are all were used to similar effect—to identify individuals or societies for the purpose of reward or punishment. That was accomplished either by listing or ranking; the former where the list itself contained the restriction or privilege; the latter where the list permitted others to use rank to determine consequence. * * * Lists, however, in themselves are merely passive conclusions; they acquire potency only when circulated, and, in the wake of circulation, when they produce a timely social, political and economic consequences undertaken through and supported by the state. These consequences, themselves, must be keyed to societal values that resonate in ways that create incentives to support or condemn particular practices or behaviors that served as the basis for placement on the list. In other words, there must be a connection between that facts that produce assessments on which list are created, and the consequences, related to that data for placement (or non-placement) on that list.The value of lists, then, lies in their utility for managing effects. * * * But while a single list may be useful means of actualizing a score, super-scoring becomes possible only by the development and coordination of a larger aggregation of lists, each potent within its own narrow field, but together capable of producing a coherent means of managing any aspect of societal expression (and its underlying beliefs). It is in that context that it is possible to think about lists, and a developing list universe system, at the center of China’s Social Credit (CSC) system. This essay considers the role of lists in the construction of CSC conceived as a vast super-scoring system that effectively displaces law and administrative regulation as the engine for ordering society through government. The essay first very briefly describes the CSC system. It then considers two questions: (1) how does one build a super scoring system through the structures of CSC?; and (2) what role do lists play within that framework. It ends with a short consideration of what may be the principle challenges for political and general education that now arise in the context of these digital regulatory measures.
AfronomicsLaw focuses on the international economic law landscape as it relates to the Africa. Its primary goal is to complement existing forums that analyze, discuss and debate international economic law issues as they relate to Africa. It offers scholars, policy makers and others interested in these issues a forum to insightfully reflect on these developments more contemporaneously with than the scholarship that is being produced. The blog also offers the growing and important voice of scholars and practitioners of African international economic law, a forum to share their views. AfronomicsLaw is a blog in association with the African International Economic Law Network, (AfILEN), but is independently run by its Editors.
once in a generation gathering of scholars and practitioners working across many fields and around the globe on the development of the legal system in the People’s Republic of China and the broader Chinese world. Both of us are excited about this unique opportunity to welcome to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan so many accomplished colleagues and friends from varied disciplines to engage in an intensive dialogue about the Chinese political legal system.A list of Conference attendees and the titles of their contributions, along with the conference schedule, all drawn form the public parts of the conference website, follow. You are encouraged to reach out to conference participants for copiers of their papers.
The Coalition for Peace and Ethics Treaty Project Working Group holds the efforts of the Open Ended Inter-Governmental Working Group in great esteem. It admires the work and skill required to bring this treaty project forward to the place where one finds it today. The CPE-Treaty Project Working Group that the surest sign of respect for projects of this kind is to take them seriously. That requires something more than brief eclogues indicating support or opposition to its terms. We believe the Treaty project is a serious endeavor and deserves serious, and honest, engagement. We leave the politics of drafting and enactment to others. Our role is to take the Treaty as given—as a complex set of mandatory commands directed to states to make substantial alternations to their legal and constitutional orders in the face of what is perceived to be an important objective of legislation across national territories—the coherent regulation of economic activity with human rights effects. This the Treaty drafters have endeavored to do.
Our greatest regret has been that, given a mandate that is in its own way now largely out of date, neither the Treaty nor its drafters sought to more robustly interlink human rights and sustainability issues. We have come a long way from the time when human rights and environmental issues were considered separate fields, relatively unrelated. We have come even farther form the time that one could imagine human rights uncoupled in the most fundamental way from both bio-diversity and climate change. Indeed, traditional environmental concerns are difficult to separate from the larger context in which they now operate—sustainability. Bio-diversity, climate change, and all in a feedback loop affected and being affected by human activities. It is our hope that the next draft of the Treaty will contain SUBSTANTIAL revisions to move toward a more integrated approach that reflect these connections.
