The legally binding instrument on business and human rights as a human rights treaty

• Department of Law

This event, organised by the Human and Fundamental Rights Working Group, the International Law Working Group, and the International Economic Law and Policy Working Group features a presentation by Markus Krajewski (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg).

The emerging international law on corporate sustainability responsibility evolves as a transnational and pluralistic multilevel regime. However, attempts to create an international treaty on business and human rights at the international level have not been successful. An intergovernmental working group has been discussing and negotiating a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights since 2015 but has not reached a consensus yet. The paper suggests that understanding the legally binding instrument on business and human rights as an international human rights treaty and thus compare it with the development of other human rights treaties can help to understand the development of the legally binding instrument and its challenges. Scholarly research on why states negotiate and conclude human rights agreements offers insights into how negotiators could proceed both with regards to process and substance to successfully conclude the LBI. The paper will also employ specific insights into the drafting process of three recent human rights conventions, i.e. the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICED) of 2006 and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of 2006. 

The draft paper will be circulated one week before the event to registered participants.