G2H2 Working groups
An overview of current and past G2H2 working groups can be found here. Groups are mandated by the Steering Committee, based on a concrete proposal by a team of G2H2 members. Please send any related enquiries to the G2H2 secretariat.
Although the G2H2 working group on “Global health and corporate power” is currently not operating in a continuous way, it is great to see that civil society colleagues from the health sector are still actively engaged in the “treaty process” and move the debate forward. For enquiries about this working group, please refer to the G2H2 Secretariat.
An Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group is currently drafting a binding treaty to regulate multinationals and other businesses. Working group meetings take place in Geneva. Since the approval of the resolution by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2014, the mobilization of organizations and social movements around this process has expanded greatly. A wide range of organizations believe that this binding treaty is a necessary tool to stop the corporate impunity, as it would allow affected communities to have access to justice and, consequently, counter the increasing power of corporations.
Even though the field of health is one of the most affected by corporate action, the organizations committed to the fulfillment of the right to health have been underrepresented throughout this process. At a workshop hosted by G2H2 in May 2017 on “What is to be done to recover peoples’ sovereignty: nutrition, food sovereignty, global health, and corporate power”, representatives of the networks and campaigns promoting a binding treaty proposed to G2H2 members to get more involved.
The G2H2 working group on “Global health and corporate power” was therefore established in summer 2017, with the aim of continuing and deepening the intersectoral dialogue on corporate power and global health and to develop contributions by the health sector to related activities and campaigns.
In the “Week of People’s Mobilization” for the binding treaty, in October 2017, the working group organized, together with some partners, a workshop on the role of transnational corporations and the right to health: “Our intention in organizing this meeting is to close the links between organizations committed to the right to health and the process of a negotiation of binding treaty in the scope of the UNHRC”.
A similar workshop took place in 2018.
Milestones