2018 Reports

Input to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights regarding guidance on human rights defenders and the role of business

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) is grateful for the opportunity to provide input to the Working Group regarding elements for guidance on human rights defenders and the role of business. As a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute, we focus on international investment and its impacts on sustainable development. In this context, we are increasingly concerned about the repression and criminalization of human rights defenders in the context of investment projects—a situation that unfortunately seems to show no sign of abating.

Our input focuses on one specific topic that we believe may be overlooked in general discussions about human rights defenders: the possibility that the international investment law regime, comprised of thousands of bilateral and multilateral treaties, may actually exacerbate the potential for repression and criminalization of human rights defenders. This concern was raised at a one-day roundtable hosted by CCSI and the Working Group in October 2017, 1 and we believe it merits further exploration.