The UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights: A critical step toward achieving climate justice

The policy brief by Friends of the Earth International advocates for a UN Binding Treaty to replace corporate self-regulation with enforceable legal obligations for transnational corporations (TNCs). It argues that TNCs across sectors like fossil fuels and agribusiness have driven the climate crisis and used 'green' branding to evade responsibility. The brief outlines five key recommendations: recognizing environmental rights as human rights, establishing direct corporate obligations for global value chains and emissions, mandating prevention and precaution measures, ensuring full ecological reparation and restoration, and rejecting ESG schemes as 'false solutions'.

• Transnational corporations (TNCs) in sectors such as fossil fuels, agribusiness, mining, finance, and tech have contributed to the climate and ecological crises while using legal loopholes, denial, and voluntary codes of conduct to avoid accountability.
• The proposed UN Binding Treaty should explicitly treat environmental harm, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, as direct violations of human rights.
• TNCs must be legally obligated to prevent environmental harm across their entire global value chains, including liability for both indirect and direct emissions.
• The treaty should mandate binding prevention measures, such as independent impact assessments and the requirement for Free, Prior and Informed consent from local communities and Indigenous Peoples, asserting that voluntary due diligence is insufficient.
• Corporate liability must extend to full reparation, which includes ecological restoration and community participation in decision-making, rather than just financial payments.
• The treaty must prevent the use of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) schemes or sustainability language as a means for corporations to evade accountability.

APA

Soares, A., Paranhos, L., Villareal, A., Fandel, G., Blanco, C., Wulf, F., Alderete, G., Renaud, J., Fajardo, P., Mamlouk, R., van Bokhorst, W., & Kyte, W. (2025). The UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights: A critical step toward achieving climate justice. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-Policy-brief.pdf

Chicago

Soares, Andressa, Letícia Paranhos, Alberto Villareal, Ghislaine Fandel, Carmen Blanco, Friedrich Wulf, Giuliana Alderete, et al. The UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights: A critical step toward achieving climate justice. Friends of the Earth International, 2025. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-Policy-brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{soares2025binding, author = {Soares, Andressa and Paranhos, Letícia and Villareal, Alberto and Fandel, Ghislaine and Blanco, Carmen and Wulf, Friedrich and Alderete, Giuliana and Renaud, Juliette and Fajardo, Pablo and Mamlouk, Roula and van Bokhorst, Wilco and Kyte, William}, title = {{The UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights: A critical step toward achieving climate justice}}, institution = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-Policy-brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }