Corporations, Investment Decisions and Human Rights Regulatory Frameworks: Reflections on the discussion pertaining to FDI flows and the impact of a potential International Legally Binding Instrument on Business and Human Rights
This brief explores the question pertaining to the impact of States’ participation in designing an Instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises in the area of human rights on attracting foreign direct investment, which has been a persistent issue of discussion since the mandate of the inter-governmental group on the mentioned Instrument was established. (more…)
A Prospective Legally Binding Instrument on TNCs and Other Business Enterprises In Regard to Human Rights: Addressing Challenges to Access to Justice Faced by Victims
The complexity of corporate structures in the current globalized economy has shaped a number of practical and procedural hurdles that victims of human rights abuses perpetrated by transnational corporations (TNCs) face when accessing judicial mechanisms in order to seek remedy, both in home and host States where TNCs operate. Some of these legal barriers include constraints in the jurisdiction of the host State due to the lack of adequate substantive and procedural laws to achieve the enforcement of effective remedy, and other obstacles related to international judicial cooperation for the collection of evidence, information and enforcement of judicial decisions, or uncertainty about the possibility of bringing claims in the home State of TNCs. (more…)
Approaching States’ Obligations Under a Prospective Legally Binding Instrument on TNCs and Other Business Enterprises In Regard to Human Rights
This brief discusses possible approaches to addressing States’ obligations under a prospective international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises. (more…)
Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: Challenges for Developing Countries
On 21 September 2016, a High Level Meeting was held on antimicrobial resistance at the sides of the United Nations General Assembly. It was followed by the adoption of a political declaration. This declaration paves the way for new coordinated actions on antimicrobial resistance backed by higher political commitment, on the basis of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (GAP) of the World Health Organization (WHO). (more…)
Scope of the Proposed International Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with respect to Human Rights
The elaboration of an ‘International Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with respect to Human Rights’ (hereinafter ‘the Instrument’), as mandated by the Human Rights Council at its 26th Ordinary Session (June 26, 2014), requires definitions about a multiplicity of issues. Many choices need to be made among possible policy options and properly reflected in treaty language. (more…)
The Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1986 (as Document 41/128) is 30 years old. It is appropriate to celebrate this anniversary. For the right to development has had great resonance among people all over the world, including in developing and poor countries. Even the term itself “the right to development” carries a great sense and weight of meaning and of hope. (more…)
Debt Dynamics in China – Serious problems but an imminent crisis is unlikely
Recently, there have been many articles in the international media predicting that China is facing an imminent financial/debt crisis worse than the 2008 US sub-prime crash. However, a closer look at the debt dynamics in China highlights some fundamental differences be-tween the debt situation of the source country of the 2008 global financial crisis and that of China. (more…)
The Right to Development, Small Island Developing States and the SAMOA Pathway
In 2015, the United Nations community reached agreements on updating the financing for development mechanisms, Agenda 2030 and an updated climate change regime. The SAMOA pathway is an important resource and an input to these efforts. (more…)
The outcome of the Third International Financing for Development Conference held in Addis Ababa on 13-16 July 2015 exposes the waning state of multilateral development cooperation today. In the outcome, which was nevertheless grandly called the “Addis Ababa Action Agenda” (AAAA), there were no new commitments and no proposed actions that can properly be deemed responsive either to (1) the flimsy state of international financing today or (2) the financing requirements of the UN’s new development agenda based on the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). (more…)
Guidelines on Patentability and Access to Medicines
The important relationship between the examination of patents carried out by national patent offices and the right of citizens to access to medicines hasn’t always been well-understood. Too often these are viewed as to unrelated functions or responsibilities of the State . And the reason is clear: Patentability requirements are not defined by patent offices, but frequently by the courts, tribunals, legislation or treaty negotiators. (more…)
The WIPO Negotiations on IP, Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge: Can It Deliver?
There has been much expectation on what the Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) can deliver on intellectual property aspects of the protection of genetic resources (GRs), traditional knowledge (TK) and related traditional cultural expressions (TCEs). Results from fourteen years of extensive study, analysis and discussion have been distilled into three negotiating texts. But in July 2014, negotiations suffered a reversal. (more…)
Lack of Progress at the Twenty-Second Session of the WIPO SCP for a Balanced and Development-Oriented Work Programme on Patent Law Related Issues
The twenty-second session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) was held in Geneva from 27 to 31 July 2015. About seven years since the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) had reconvened in June 2008 with a focus on developing a balanced work programme on issues relating to the law of patents that would also address development and public policy issues that arise in the context of the patent system, the SCP has been unable to agree on a work programme on any issue related to patents and development. (more…)
