Editor’s note: Katharine Booth holds a LLM,
Advanced Programme in European and International Human Rights Law from Leiden
University, Netherlands and a LLB and BA from the University of New South
Wales, Australia. She is currently working with the Asser Institute in The
Hague. She previously worked for a Supreme Court Justice and as lawyer in
Australia.
Overview
On 12 February 2020, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (Commissioner) issued a report on all business
enterprises involved in certain activities relating to Israeli settlements in
the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) (Report). The Report contains a database of
112 businesses that the Commissioner has reasonable grounds to conclude have
been involved in certain activities in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Of
the businesses listed, 94 are domiciled in Israel and the remaining 18 in 6
other countries: France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Thailand, the UK and the US.
Many of the latter are household names in digital tourism, such as Airbnb,
Booking, Expedia, Opodo and TripAdvisor, as well as Motorola. More...
Editor’s
note: Shamistha Selvaratnam is a LLM Candidate of the Advanced Masters of
European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden University in the
Netherlands. Prior to commencing the LLM, she worked as a business and human
rights solicitor in Australia where she specialised in promoting business respect for human rights through engagement with
policy, law and practice.
From 15 to 19 October 2018, the fourth session of the open-ended
intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other
business enterprises with respect to human rights took place in Geneva. 92 UN States
participated in the session along with a range of stakeholders, including
intergovernmental organisations, business organisations, special procedures of
the Human Rights Council and national human rights institutions. The focus of
the session was on the zero draft of the proposed binding business and human
rights treaty (from herein referred to as the
‘treaty’).
This blog sets out the key views and
suggestions made by those in attendance with respect to the treaty during the
session.[1]
Issues and areas of concern raised at the session generally aligned with the critiques
raised by commentators on the first draft of the treaty (which are set out in a
previous
blog). More...