FIAN International will advocate for an ambitious legally binding instrument (LBI) at the negotiations. If states fail to support this, corporate impunity will continue to undermine human rights, justice, and dignity for people on the frontlines of extractivism, land grabbing, climate harm, labor abuses, and environmental destruction.
In their reports to the UN General Assembly, the Working Group on peasants and rural workers and the Special Rapporteur on the right to food have also warned that the growing dominance of transnational corporations and industrial agribusiness in global food systems poses an escalating threat to food security, rural livelihoods, and human rights. They stress that voluntary commitments are not enough. The rights enshrined in the UN declaration on rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas – including rights to land, seeds, biodiversity, and participation – must be implemented through binding laws and robust accountability mechanisms.
Environmental rights have been particularly weakened in the latest updated draft of the LBI. FIAN and partner organizations call upon states to re-integrate in the instrument’s robust language enshrining the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as indicated in a recently published study.
“We stand ready – alongside movements of peasants, Indigenous Peoples, workers, environmental defenders, and affected communities – to push for a treaty with teeth,” says Ayushi Kalyan, corporate accountability coordinator at FIAN International.
“In Geneva we will push strongly with our partners for textual provisions that ensure justice, accountability, and respect for human rights above corporate profit.”
Robust rights-based treaty
This week will see the continuation of state-led negotiations on Articles 12-24 and an interactive discussion based on the Chair’s summary of the three intersessional consultations, that took place earlier this year, as well as his own proposals on redrafting Articles 4-11. These were only published five days before the start of the negotiations, giving civil society and states little time to properly analyse them. Corporate lobbies and business representatives actively participated in the intersessional consultations this year, further diluting the draft and pushing for voluntary standards, rather than legal binding provisions.
Moreover, the Chair-Rapporteur’s proposed redrafting of Articles 4–11 presents a streamlined and procedural version of the LBI that prioritizes textual convergence among states over substantive ambition. While the Chair’s sugestions includes some positive advancements, it narrows state obligations by conditioning them on domestic legal frameworks, not sufficiently integrating environmental and gender dimensions, and softening accountability provisions related to corporate liability and access to justice.
This approach diverges from FIAN’s positioning, which called for a robust, rights-based treaty grounded in binding state obligations, precautionary measures, strong environmental protection, compulsory joint and several liability and communities’ right to say “no!”. The timing and content of the Chair’s proposals risk sidelining these substantive civil society and Global South proposals, shifting the process toward procedural consensus rather than transformative justice.
Time for action
The choices made now will determine whether the final instrument is robust – or watered down to the point of ineffectiveness.
“Failure to adopt strong, binding norms will continue the impunity of transnational corporations,” says Stephan Backes, coordinator for extraterritorial obligations of states at FIAN International.
We call on all states to engage in this negotiating session with ambition and courage. We need a treaty that establishes binding obligations for transnational corporations, robust enforcement mechanisms, and effective remedies for affected peoples. It must address the interlinkages between corporate power, environmental destruction, climate injustice, military-industrial complex and gender inequality, including through reparations, sanctions, and divestment from abusive industries.
These dimensions must be integrated across the treaty, not treated as peripheral issues. It is also essential to prevent undue interference of business interests seeking to dilute human rights protections. The process should be driven by human rights principles not corporate interests.
These negotiations should not be rushed, nor watered down to accommodate corporate or geopolitical pressure. A weak or symbolic agreement would only legitimize the status quo of impunity.
For further information, please contact Ayushi Kalyan kalyan@fian.org or Stephan Backes backes@fian.org
