We continue engaging with the UN process to develop a new treaty to regulate transnational corporations and other business enterprises by mobilizing at the regional level and using the international process as an opportunity to advance accountability at the regional and national level. This year several new activities were carried out and our members have engaged in many ways with collective work at the international level (UN) and at the regional level.

Latin America Region – Our members have been bringing corporate accountability before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). We have approached the Commission in 3 opportunities:

• First Forum on the Inter American Human Rights System (IASHR) in Washington, DC on December 4 during a panel “Access to Information and Transparency related to Extractive Activities and Affectation of the Rights of Environment Defenders”;
• 167^th Period of Sessions of the IACHR in Bogota on March 2 during a public hearing “Business and Human Rights: Input for the Preparation of Inter-American Guidelines”. 10 of our members participated in the public hearing and the video is available here (only in Spanish).
• Following up on the hearing the IACHR Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights of the disseminated a questionnaire to receive contributions on this topic. Over 10 ESCR-Net members contributed to a collective document in response to that questionnaire.

African Region – Several ESCR-Net members were present at the African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA) General Assembly in Pretoria, South Africa, leading a plenary panel on UN-level advances and the need for binding regulations to ensure corporate accountability In turn, a few members have been central to raising this need to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) and in key regional spaces.

UN – CAWG members represented the network in 2 opportunities:

• During the 37^th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 7-9 when the report of the third session of the UN Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) was presented.
• During the 62th session of the Conference on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, our members that are part of the informal coalition Feminists for a Binding Treaty have organized two panels, discussing corporate-related human rights abuses experienced by women and girls living in rural areas and the demands emerging from their resistance. The videos are available here and here.

Next Steps

We are getting ready for the IGWG 4^th Session in Geneva, which will take place from October 15-19. We will have regional calls with members per region, to reinforce the ways members can engage regionally and internationally. To share information about progress towards national, regional and international corporate accountability actions, and get informed and discuss strategies for the next IGWG 4^th session in October 2018, please join our upcoming calls. If you are planning to engage in regional or national advocacy related to the Treaty or more broadly in the field of corporate accountability, please let us know by writing to Alexandra or to the escr-net-cawg@googlegroups.com.

We are planning several strategic discussions around the Binding Treaty to take place in the upcoming Peoples’ Forum on Human Rights and Business in the first week of September in Manila, the Philippines. The meeting will be co-hosted by Tebtebba Foundation. Stay tuned!

Our Corporate Capture Project addresses the ways that governments, public institutions and decision-making organs are influenced and manipulated by corporations to act according to narrow private interests.

We have facilitated a parallel session on “Addressing interference in access to justice: perspectives from the ground” during the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights on November last year in Geneva, as well as making this issue central to the Treaty advocacy in one of our three advocacy positions. Our members that are part of the Project Advisory Group have finished the action plan and are having monthly calls to move forward with the project.

Next Steps

CAWG is preparing a fact sheet and a video animation about corporate capture to be shared with our members. The initial idea is to have it shown at and inform the Peoples’ Forum discussions on corporate capture. These and other resources are ultimately meant to support wider popularization and campaigning. We are also in the process of beginning to identify existing policies and legislative mechanisms in place to prevent or confront various manifestations of corporate capture.

During ESCR-Net’s cross-working group meeting in Durban, our members representing CAWG will be nominating the issue of corporate capture as one of the main issues to focus on via Network-wide action or campaigning.

If you are interested in getting involved in this project, please let Alexandra (amontgomery@escr-net.org) know. 

With deep sadness we want to acknowledge the passing of Mohamed "Nagi" Ibrahim Mohamed Salem, the Executive Manager of Habi Center for Environmental Rights in Egypt. He has passed away in the beginning of June in Egypt. Nagi has served ESCR-Net for many years in the Corporate Accountability Working Group Steering Committee and in the Project Advisory Group of the Corporate Capture Project.