LCHR Statement to the UN on Working Methods and Activities of Transnational Corporations

January 9, 2025

Abuses of workers rights continue to attract global attention. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights is committed to protecting the rights of workers by developing stronger models of corporate accountability in the global market place.

While primary responsibility for human rights protection rests with national governments, many States unfortunately lack the capacity for enforcement. At the same time, transnational corporations (TNCs) are taking an increasingly instrumental role in economic and social policies on the global, national and local levels. Therefore, the accountability of non-state actors is crucial for the robust promotion and protection of human rights.

The Lawyers Committee strongly endorses the Draft Norms of Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights and reiterates its hope that the Working Group adopts the Draft Norms as a matter of priority. The Draft Norms realistically address various lacunae in the contemporary regime of human rights protection. They elaborate meaningful guidelines against which to assess corporate conduct. They also envisage a series of steps of implementation to ensure the full force of the Draft Norms.

The alterations made to the Draft Norms and Commentary since the Working Group’s fourth session in August are, by and large, extremely progressive. Importantly, the Preamble now explicitly provides that the Commentary serves as an authoritative interpretation of the contents of the Draft Norms. Also, the Draft Norms include new references to international human rights law covering the rights of workers (on top of references to international instruments and national legislation). This development strengthens their role as a restatement of existing human rights laws applicable to businesses.

Transparency is the cornerstone of corporate accountability and there are marked improvements in the enforcement apparatus created by the Draft Norms and Commentary. The Lawyers Committee endorses the requirement that TNCs entertain individual complaints, now explicitly included in the body of the Draft Norms and elaborated upon in the Draft Commentary. Along with monitoring and regular reporting, this is an important step towards attaining thorough disclosure of corporate activity and testing the efficacy of internal compliance systems. The Working Group is also to be commended for including a variety of sanctions in the Draft Norms, such as reparations, restitution and compensation, and calling upon national courts to enforce the Responsibilities. In addition, the Lawyers Committee is especially gratified to see the inclusion of several of the recommendations made in our previous Statements, such as reference to input of NGO and worker representative organizations. As we requested, the Draft Commentary now refers to the possible creation of a forum within the U.N. system that would provide a structure for information to be received from all stakeholders regarding the activities of corporations and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights.

In a global marketplace, goods and services are often manufactured in factories that are located far from the point of sale, and TNCs involved in retail rely extensively on supply chains and license agreements for production. The Lawyers Committee notes that the Draft Norms have now incorporated references to the often complicated structure of corporate activity, with a requirement that the Responsibilities be implemented in supply and license agreements. This is a positive development which reflects the reality of global sourcing and creates a tighter system of accountability for corporations that take advantage of this reality.

However, we are troubled by a textual change in the Draft Commentary that omits supply chains from being subject to a transparent monitoring process. Independent monitoring, remediation and sourcing decisions at a management level should be seen as interdependent parts of one process. The Draft Commentary should therefore provide for full implementation at every stage of production.

The Draft Norms will make a significant contribution to the oversight of corporate conduct. The benchmarks and regulatory vision contained in the Draft Norms have great potential for shaping the field of corporate social responsibility. The Lawyers Committee urges the Working Group to adopt the Draft Norms in 2003 and to obtain their adoption by the Sub-Commission as a whole without further delay.

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