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A UN Treaty to stop corporate impunity could be finalized within the next two years. This issue explores why the negotiations matter—and what is at stake for communities seeking accountability.

A protester in El Salvador demonstrates against metallic mining after President Nayib Bukele overturned the country's historic ban on metallic mining. Photo: Víctor Peña/El Faro. 

Last April in Barcelona, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez gathered progressive leaders, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, to discuss how to defend democracy and multilateralism amid rising authoritarianism and growing geopolitical tensions. 

In a recent op-ed, Salvadoran environmental defender Zenayda Serrano of MUFRAS-32 and ESCR-Net's Corporate Accountability Coordinator Mona Sabella argue that one of the greatest threats to governments’ ability to act in the public interest is often left out of the conversation: corporate power.

"Fewer than 60,000 people — the richest 0.001% — now control three times more wealth than half of humanity combined. This is not only a question of inequality; it is a question of political power: the ability to shape laws, influence elections, and block reforms that threaten corporate interests."

More than a decade after Global South countries launched negotiations for a UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights—also referred to as the legally binding instrument (LBI)—the process is entering a decisive phase, and the stakes could not be higher.

According to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre's latest report, nearly 800 attacks linked to business activity were documented against human rights defenders across 80 countries in 2025 alone. Many were connected to mining, agribusiness, fossil fuels, and large-scale infrastructure projects. Indigenous Peoples accounted for 30% of recorded attacks despite representing just 6% of the world's population.

"The question is whether governments still have the ability to impose effective limits on forms of economic power that can violate human and environmental rights, weaken regulation, and exert greater influence than many states."

Community members in Dhinkia, Odisha, during a protest against a proposed steel project.

For more than two decades, communities in Odisha, India, have resisted steel projects that threaten their lands, livelihoods, forests, and environment. The struggle began in 2005, when South Korean steel giant POSCO announced plans for a massive steel plant and port complex that would have displaced thousands of people and devastated a region sustained by small-scale farming, fishing, and betel vine cultivation.

After years of community resistance, legal challenges, and international solidarity, POSCO withdrew in 2017. Yet the struggle continues. Much of the land earmarked for the project was later transferred to JSW Steel, and communities in villages such as Dhinkia continue to raise concerns about displacement, environmental harms, violations of forest rights, and restrictions on their right to protest. As recently as May 2026, villagers staged demonstrations alleging forced land acquisition, the disregard of Gram Sabha (village assembly) decisions required under India's forest rights framework, and police repression linked to the project.

On the international stage, in 2025, a group of UN human rights experts also warned that the JSW project could violate international human rights standards and called on authorities to ensure that the rights of affected communities are fully respected. Earlier, in 2022, ESCR-Net and more than 130 organizations and movements joined affected communities in calling on authorities to halt forced evictions, land grabbing, and the repression of villagers defending their rights.

The Odisha case exposes a core challenge the UN Treaty seeks to address: while corporations, investors, and supply chains operate across borders, affected communities often face enormous barriers in accessing justice, remedy, and accountability. As negotiations enter a decisive phase, the experience of Odisha is a reminder of what is at stake for communities confronting corporate power around the world.

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• Stop Corporate Land Grab and Repression of Villagers in Odisha (ESCR-Net statement)
• Two Decades of Relentless Resistance (By Coalition for Human Rights in Development)
• The Price of Steel: Human Rights and Forced Evictions in the POSCO India Project (Report)

A man during rescue operations after the 2019 Vale dam collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil.

Across the world, communities continue to face pollution, land grabbing, environmental destruction, and false climate solutions without effective access to remedy. That is why many climate justice organizations see the LBI as a critical tool for environmental accountability.

Two recent briefings published with our members FIAN International, CIEL, Franciscans International, along with our ally International Service for Human Rights, explore how the LBI can help strengthen environmental accountability. They argue that it should reinforce the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, while strengthening prevention, corporate liability, access to justice, environmental remediation, and protections for affected communities. The briefs also argue that the LBI can serve as a structural lever for environmental justice and a just transition.

• No Profit Without Accountability: Recognizing the Right to a Healthy Environment
• Time to Act: Securing a Sustainable Future Through Corporate Accountability

“To fail now would be to admit that multilateralism has been defeated by corporate interests.”

• What Happened at the April 2026 Intersessionals?
  
  
• What Happened at the May 2026 Intersessional Consultations?
  

Illustration from The Power of the 99% to Stop Corporate Capture comic series by ESCR-Net and artist Lucio Zago.

The treaty process was launched because voluntary approaches failed to prevent corporate violations and abuses and ensure accountability. Yet throughout the negotiations, business associations and corporate lobby groups—including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Organisation of Employers (IOE), and other industry representatives—have consistently advocated for weaker standards and voluntary measures.

The same corporations that communities seek accountability from often enjoy privileged access to policymakers and negotiation spaces.

As the process enters a decisive phase, ensuring that negotiations are guided by affected communities and human rights principles—not corporate interests—has become one of the movements’ central demands.

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Explore the ‘Treaty Hub’ for updates, analyses, campaign resources, and ways to engage.