{"id":13495,"date":"2021-11-01T11:09:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T11:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=13495"},"modified":"2021-11-01T11:09:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T11:09:02","slug":"kenya-catholic-bishops-in-kenya-urge-government-to-engage-actively-in-2021-un-treaty-binding-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2021\/11\/01\/kenya-catholic-bishops-in-kenya-urge-government-to-engage-actively-in-2021-un-treaty-binding-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"KENYA: Catholic Bishops in Kenya Urge Government to \u201cEngage Actively\u201d in 2021 UN Treaty Binding Negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n

Following the ongoing deliberations on the United Nations (UN) third revised draft<\/a> legally binding instrument on\u00a0business and human rights in Geneva, Switzerland, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) through Parliamentary Liaison Desk has appealed to government to actively engage in negotiations \u201cfor the common good that will enhance accountability of Transnational Companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 7th<\/sup> session of the UN Binding Treaty that has been ongoing from October 25 to 29, \u201cseeks to regulate in international human rights law, the activities of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call on the Government of Kenya to engage actively in the 2021 UN Binding Treaty negotiations,\u201d reads an excerpt of the KCCB\u2019s statement shared with AMECEA Online <\/em>Sunday, October 24, ahead of the conference.<\/p>\n

They added, \u201cWe reiterate our commitment to the UN Binding Treaty on Business and Human rights and urge the Kenyan Government to fully support the third revised draft in order to protect the future generation from Corporate impunity and Environmental degradation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Catholic bishops in their statement signed by the KCCB Chairman for Commission for the Promotion of Integral Human Development (PIHD) Bishop John Oballa Owaa have further called on Legislators to \u201cConsider developing Kenya domestic\u00a0legislation to hold corporations accountable for human rights and environmental abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the bishops through Parliamentary Liaison\u2019s Desk, even though corporations can spur economic growth of the Nation by creating jobs and generating more revenues from taxes, \u201cExperience from\u00a0Africa and the globe shows that the same companies can cause great harm to environment and engage in human right abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally the statement reads, \u201cThe existence of International legal gap together with Transnational corporations complex structure and operations across multiple jurisdictions has led to increase in human right abuses such as land grubbing, forced displacement, inadequate compensation, tax evasions, child labour, human trafficking and environmental degradation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this way KCCB members continued, \u201cIt is important to note that the impact of the violations affect the poor who are already suffering from Covid-19 economic effects\u201d and \u201cThe Church as conscience of society driven by the principle of preferential treatment for the poor and the common good will always stand and speak for the voiceless in the Society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other than urging for active participation of the government in the 2021 UN Treaty negotiations, the conference that has participated keenly for the past three years in Domestic and International lobbing towards enactment of legally binding instrument on Business and Human Rights through Parliamentary Liaison Desk has \u201crecommend that the Treaty should consider the gender\u00a0aspect of corporate violations and also speak to the role of Financiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focusing on environmental issues which was an agenda in the ongoing four-day meeting, the bishops disclosed that \u201cThe church as a social institution and its adherents in their individual\u00a0capacity as members of the society, have a social and moral responsibility <\/em>to be involved in environmental conservation,\u201d and caring for natural resources is a \u201cmeasure of its stewardship and respect to the Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reverencing Pope Francis\u2019 reminder on care for creation they said, “Our Earth needs constant concern and attention; each of us has a personal responsibility to care for creation, this precious gift which God has entrusted to us,\u201d hence \u201cthe reasons why the Catholic Church in Kenya has been actively involved in United Nations Binding Treaty considering environmental impact of Transnational Companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call upon Kenyans and people of good will to always remember that\u00a0they have the right to say no whenever their human rights and Healthy Environment is abused by Transnational Companies,\u201d They said.<\/p>\n

In conclusion they asked participants in the deliberations a productive session towards the adoption of the UN Biding Treating and urged Legislators to become members of the Global Inter\u00a0Parliamentary Network that supports the Treaty process by signing the declaration at www.bindingtreaty.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA Following the ongoing deliberations on the United Nations (UN) third…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-kenya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13499,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions\/13499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}