At its 26th session, on 26 June 2014, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 26/9 by which it decided “to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.”
The Human Rights Council also decided that the first two sessions of the open-ended intergovernmental working group “shall be dedicated to conducting constructive deliberations on the content, scope, nature and form of the future international instrument.”
Following its first session, which was held from 6 to 10 July 2015, the open-ended intergovernmental working group presented its report to the Council at its thirty-first session (A/HRC/31/50).
The second session took place from 24 to 28 October 2016 and the open-ended intergovernmental working group presented its report to the Council at its thirty-fourth session in March 2016 (A/HRC/34/47).
In resolution 26/9, the Human Rights Council further decided that "the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the open-ended intergovernmental working group should prepare elements for the draft legally binding instrument for substantive negotiations at the commencement of the third session of the working group on the subject, taking into consideration the discussions held at its first two sessions." This third session will take place from 23 to 27 October 2017 in Room XX of the Palais des Nations.
