To all followers of the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration project:
Below you will find the link to the complete draft text of the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration.
The publication of the draft text of the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration represents a milestone in our project, as we are finally able to provide those following the project with a complete set of draft provisions which forms the basis for the final version of our work.
The draft text is based on the UNCITRAL Rules and adapted to the unique features of business human rights disputes as discussed in the Elements Paper of last November, and taking into account the comments submitted by members of the Sounding Board and others during our first public consultation in November through January. A summary version of all the comments received was published some days ago on the website of CILC in the form of a Summary Paper.
Today we open a second consultation on the draft text of the Hague Rules. We look forward to receiving comments from all interested stakeholders. For that reason, we have elaborated some tools to facilitate this task.
First, in order to guide readers through the reasoning underlying the formulation of certain articles of the Hague Rules, the Drafting Team has put together a draft commentary. For each article, this commentary highlights whether the Hague Rules amend the original text of the UNCITRAL Rules and, if so, why and to what extent, including the intent of various clauses. The commentary also formulates certain specific questions to you on certain points where your comments are particularly important. The commentary is still a work in progress, and we aim to further elaborate and clarify it before the publication of the final version of the Rules in December 2019. Therefore, while we would invite readers to take the commentary into account when providing comments, we would most appreciate reactions to the text of the Rules to which the commentary pertains, rather than on the commentary itself.
Second, readers will notice that some sentences or articles in the text are bracketed. The brackets mark text on which the Drafting Team has only tentative views and on which we particularly welcome views.
With respect to the Code of Conduct annexed to the Rules, this is still an early draft on which we will continue to work. Readers are welcome to provide comments on the fundamental ideas embodied in the Code of Conduct, and what you think we should add, amend or delete from the text.
With respect to the consultation process, this link will give readers access to the text of the Rules and to an editable PDF form complete with comment boxes for each draft rule. Reviewers are encouraged to offer both general reactions and article-by-article comments to any or all draft text. Please send your saved PDF form with your comments to the following email address: secretariat.simma@cilc.nl.
In order to allow the Drafting Team to digest what we hope will be a large number of comments on your part in time for the publication of the Rules on 10 December, the second consultation will close on 4 September 2019.
On behalf of the Drafting Team and myself, I thank you all in advance for your interest in and contribution to our work during this second round of consultation.
Kind regards,
Bruno Simma