Obligaciones ambientales para las empresas en el instrumento jurídicamente vinculante sobre empresas transnacionales y otras empresas con respecto a los derechos humanos

The policy brief by Friends of the Earth International advocates for the integration of explicit environmental and climate obligations for transnational corporations (TNCs) into the UN's legally binding instrument. It argues that the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a recognized human right, as established by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/300 and various regional courts. The document provides specific text proposals to ensure TNCs are held legally accountable for environmental damage, biodiversity loss, and climate change, moving beyond procedural due diligence to substantive obligations of result, including the total elimination of climate emissions across value chains and full ecological restoration.

• Environmental rights are now recognized as human rights under international law, specifically through UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/300 (2022), which establishes the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a universal human right.
• Regional human rights systems have established that environmental damage can be an autonomous violation of rights, independent of its impact on other rights like health or life. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (OC-23/17) explicitly recognizes the right to a healthy environment as an autonomous right protected by Article 26 of the American Convention.
• The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) protects the environment indirectly by interpreting existing rights, such as the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) and the right to life (Article 2), to address industrial pollution and hazardous sites.
• Climate and environmental litigation is accelerating in the Global South, with courts in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh using constitutional rights and international commitments to enforce climate duties and protect ecosystems.
• The document argues that prevention mechanisms must go beyond procedural 'due diligence'—which risks becoming a corporate self-monitoring exercise—and instead include binding obligations such as the cessation of harmful activities and the requirement of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).
• Proposed obligations for TNCs include the requirement to progressively and rapidly eliminate climate emissions, including indirect emissions throughout their entire value chain, treating this as an obligation of result rather than merely of means.
• Full reparation for environmental violations must include ecological restoration to return the environment to a state as close as possible to its condition prior to the violation, moving beyond simple financial compensation.
• The document emphasizes that human rights and environmental obligations must take primacy over bilateral or multilateral investment agreements, which are often used by TNCs to obstruct national environmental protections.

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). Obligaciones ambientales para las empresas en el instrumento jurídicamente vinculante sobre empresas transnacionales y otras empresas con respecto a los derechos humanos. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ES-Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-1-1.pdf

Chicago

Soares, Andressa, Letícia Paranhos, Alberto Villareal, Ghislaine Fandel, Carmen Blanco, Friedrich Wulf, Giuliana Alderete, et al. Obligaciones ambientales para las empresas en el instrumento jurídicamente vinculante sobre empresas transnacionales y otras empresas con respecto a los derechos humanos. Friends of the Earth International, 2025. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ES-Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-1-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{soares2025obligaciones, 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 = {{Obligaciones ambientales para las empresas en el instrumento jurídicamente vinculante sobre empresas transnacionales y otras empresas con respecto a los derechos humanos}}, institution = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ES-Binding-Treaty-Climate-reccs-1-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }