Here are 15 propositions born from my many years as a human rights activist. They are presented in no particular order.

  1. I recently read one comrade posing that, sometimes, we must withdraw ourselves from spaces that are hopelessly captured and think about alternative ways of engaging. I fully agree with his statement. In the civil society’s negotiations in the Committee on Food Security (CFS) in FAO (on voluntary guidelines on food systems), towards the end, the group I work with set non-negotiable ‘red lights’; the same were not heeded in the discussion with member states, so we withdrew from the final stretch of the negotiation, and the guidelines were approved without public interest CSOs’ endorsement. We stood by our principles so that the rich member states and their acolytes got it their way. The precedent we set is important: do publicly withdraw if the red lights you set are overruled. Effective is calling a press conference after such a defeat.

  2. As important is to prioritize support to grassroots organizations rather than focus mostly on spending funds on attending events organized primarily by the Global North. (We spend many hundreds of collective brain hours preparing our critiques and positions and, invariably, end up disappointed with watered-down decisions/resolutions). Is it thus gainful/worthwhile for us to work at the global public policy level, neglecting to move more organizational resources to regional and local levels? Food for thought. I strongly feel participants in these global fora need to come together in defending the elaboration of strong binding resolutions/treaties, avoiding and rejecting attempts by the-you-know-who to control the negotiation process by ‘diluting’ the texts, making them optional.

  3. It remains the No. 1 priority of activists to mobilize resources that reach and strengthen communities confronting extractivism head-on using either legal, cultural, and/or other tools. It remains a sad truth that many small organizations or movements doing this work do not have access to funds.

  4. Another key struggle at the global level is to get the UN away from consensus as a requisite for passing resolutions. It is in these negotiations, towards the deadline, where/when documents are watered down by the rich member states by ‘trading horses’ on the remaining contested issues (in brackets) in the text. If resolutions would have a vote and a minority position of member states would be tabled, as public interest CSOs (PICSOs), we will gain potential partners. (Consensus is demanded for member states to apply the resolutions at the national level, but we know the resolutions stay in the ‘in-tray’ and are mostly not implemented).

  5. A stronger demand must be mounted for private sector actors to be compliant with human rights (and disclose their conflicts of interest) when they participate in UN human rights or other fora. As PICSOs, we need to assess each of these actors and publicly denounce non-compliance. This includes denouncing ‘the sin’ of revolving doors. Failure to disclose the ‘pecadillos’ of these actors is to lead to sanctions.

  6. Corporate social accountability assessments by PICSOs acting as watchdogs are crucial. [Watchdogs are a man’s best friend: dogs bite. Watchdog civil society organizations are to watch like ‘white knights fighting the dark forces of development aid, corruption, and incompetence.’

  7. UN agencies also have conflicts of interest (CoI). We must insist they disclose their CoI by making all their funding sources available on their websites. This must be binding, not voluntary. (FIAN researched FAO and could not get information on all funders; they were told these were confidential).

  8. Although not new, we must continue targeting Our Common Agenda, i.e., the SDGs, on the issue of multistakeholderism to avoid corporate capture. We have to work together with now a good number of PICSOs demanding the same. Multistakeholderism is a method of governance that involves bringing together multiple stakeholders to address a shared issue. Stakeholders are individuals or organizations that have a stake in the issue, meaning they are affected by it or can affect it. Corporate self-interest is built into the multistakeholder approach. It also encourages states towards positions that favour corporate interests.

  9. Mandatory due diligence is only one (insufficient) step in ending corporate impunity; it does not guarantee accountability on its own. Too many public and private organizations we push to comply with their human rights obligations have an ‘elephant’ skin’—this is why due diligence does not work. [Allow me to elaborate: Political will is usually understood as a greater resolve on the part of states. But political will is not owned by politicians, who usually act only in response to consistent and compelling pressure from organized and mobilized claim holders from the left and (cronies from) the right. Therefore, it is not a lack of political will, but rather the accumulation of a political will by the powerful to oppose or stall the implementation of progressive policies that tackle human rights abuses. We cannot forget that ‘a political will’ must be pulled from those in power and thus depends on the capacity of local, national, and transnational public interest civil society and social movements to push governments and the international agencies to be consequent with the human rights framework. A lack of political will is a function of how lopsided the concentration of power is, even if complex. Due diligence is an investigation, audit, or review performed to confirm facts or details of a matter under consideration. It makes sure reasonable steps are taken by an institution or corporation in order to satisfy legal and human rights requirements.

  10. There is a lack of an independent judicial mechanism for the human rights accountability of corporate and economic actors. Work on this must be seriously considered, i.e., working with judges, legislators, and left-wing political parties. What this entails is an enormous task of capacity building ahead to particularly engage judges, parliamentarians, and lawyers in international human rights law.

  11. To my knowledge, we have done little to forcefully denounce corporate capture by the defense industry. Given the current terrible situation, we can take advantage of the fact that this has more resonance with the public and can thus gain us supporters.

  12. Also, an insufficiently tapped resource is to carefully and systematically review all general comments and use their recommendations to strengthen our demands. As such, we need to review all Geneva Treaty Monitoring Bodies. General comments clarify the content of the rights set out in UN human rights treaties, sometimes outlining potential violations of those rights and offering advice to state parties on how best to comply with their obligations under the respective human rights treaty. Human rights treaty bodies are committees of independent experts that monitor the implementation of the core international human rights treaties.

  13. We need to use Concluding Observations emanating from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process on key countries to strengthen our arguments and advocacy. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique mechanism of the Human Rights Council that calls for each UN member state to undergo a peer review of its human rights records every 4-5 years.

  14. Fellow PICSOs are hereby invited to join the ongoing negotiations on a Binding Treaty on the TNCs’ human rights responsibilities. Quite a few PICSOs have, for ten years now, worked on an ad-hoc campaign to participate in the negotiations in Geneva.

  15. Finally, I think it’s crucial that fellow PICSOs and social movements organize retreats for revisioning/remissioning themselves, taking into account what is presented in this Meer piece. One of the ideas that could have an impact is to designate one joint global action day on the defense of human rights every quarter.