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Webinar

Tuesday 6 October 2020
Webinar (Zoom)
09:00 GMT  /  10:00 WAT  /  11:00 SAST  /  12:00 EAT 

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Theme: Towards an African response to the Second Revised Draft of the Treaty on Business and Human Rights

Moderator: Ms Abiodun Baiyewu
Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the African Coalition for Corporate Accountability
Executive Director of Global Rights Nigeria

Panellists

• Welcoming remarks
  Prof Tshepo Madlingozi
  Director of CALS, Member of Steering Committee the African Coalition Corporate Accountability
• Reflection on the Second Revised Draft of the Treaty on Business and Human Rights
  Prof David Bilchitz
  Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Johannesburg and
  Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC)
• Assessing the Second Revised Draft from an African civil society perspective
  Mr Arnold Kwesi
  Project Coordinator at the Uganda Consortium on Corporate Accountability (UCCA)
• The Second Revised Draft from a gender perspective
  Ms Felogene Anumo
  Building Feminist Economies at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and Feminists for a Binding Treaty (#F4BT)
• Pushing for the adoption of a binding treaty: The balance of forces that have a bearing on the treaty process and prospects for adoption
  Prof Githu Muigai
  Associate Professor of Law at the University of Nairobi and Member of the United Nations Working Group on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises
• Pushing for the adoption of a binding treaty: The role of African governments in the treaty process and prospects for adoption
  Ms Gladice Pickering
  Deputy Executive Director, Ministry of Justice, Republic of Namibia

Background

In June 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted resolution 26/9, sponsored by the governments of South Africa and Ecuador, in which it decided “to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises”. The call and the resultant draft treaty have found support in the global south, which is the host to the majority of multinational enterprises. In June 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted resolution 26/9, sponsored by the governments of South Africa and Ecuador, in which it decided “to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises”. The call and the resultant draft treaty have found support in the global south, which is the host to the majority of multinational enterprises. 

On 6 August 2020, the Second Revised Draft of the treaty was released. After a zero draft in 2018 and a first revised draft in 2019, the current draft will mark an important step in the negotiations and hopefully will pave the road towards the adoption of a legally binding treaty on Business and Human Rights. The next session of the intergovernmental negotiations will take place in Geneva on 26 - 30 October 2020.   

The purpose of this webinar is to unpack the Second Revised Draft from an African perspective. The webinar will be an opportunity for Africans to discuss the draft, highlight its strengths and weaknesses and reflect on the prospects of galvanising state support for its adoption.

Hosts

The African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA) and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). The African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA) and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). ACCA is the biggest coalition of African civil society organisations focusing on business and human rights. The ACCA Secratariat is seated in the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies is a human rights-centred organisation based at the Wits School of Law.

For more information, please contact:

Dr Sa Benjamin Traore
Project Coordinator, African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA)
[email protected] 

Sandile Ndelu
Advocacy Coordinator, Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS)
[email protected]