Preventing "corporate capture": Responsible policy…

3:00pm – 4:40 Preventing "corporate capture": Responsible policy and regulatory engagement

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The corporate responsibility to respect human rights entails that when businesses participate in, and attempt to influence political, regulatory and judicial processes, they should conduct this participation transparently, responsibly and in a rights-respecting manner. In turn, where States permit corporate political engagement, they have an obligation to ensure that engagement is adequately regulated to avoid impairing the State's ability to safeguard against resulting human rights harms. It has been documented in every corner of the world that business engagement with political and judicial processes have led to or enabled business-related human rights abuses. This phenomena has been studied by the UN Working Group on business and human rights, in its recent report on Corporate influence in the political and regulatory sphere: ensuring business practice in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that sheds light on some prominent patterns of corporate political engagement and their implications on human rights, formulating recommendations to respond to identified challenges. .
The session will feature existing challenges and current endeavors to ensure responsible corporate engagement in policy and judicial processes from different stakeholders perspective and discuss innovative ideas , practices and solutions to prevent "corporate capture" and its impact on rights holders.
Key objectives of the session:
The session aims to:

• Highlight how corporate engagement in policy, regulatory and judicial processes can negatively affect human rights  rights-holders and the planet. 
• Discuss emerging measures and practices companies and States  implement  to ensure that corporate political engagement does not lead to human rights harms 
• Exchange practice of  regulatory mechanisms or frameworks that seek to regulate private sector lobbying and avoid corporate capture.