#BindingTreaty

When we receive the request in the summer of 2021 to shoot a campaign clip on a small budget for the Treaty Alliance Deutschland on the German government's refusal to constructively participate in the UN Treaty Process, we are at a loss at first. The process, through which globally active corporations are required to respect human rights in international trade relations and supply chains is largely unknown in Germany. But then the activists tell us about representatives of the German government who used exactly this lack of publicity as justification for their lack of commitment - and the idea is born.

A fictitious street survey as a utopian-ironic intervention tool

Let's imagine that you were a head of unit or state secretary in the German Federal Foreign Office, that you had always been able to reassure your minister by saying that no one in Germany had ever heard of the UN Treaty and therefore you had only delegated one intern at most to the negotiations so far. And then you wake up in the morning, look at Twitter and realise: whoever you ask in Germany, from the student to the taxi driver to the senior citizen and the hobo: they all know more about the treaty process than they do about the football league. And they all expect an appropriate commitment from their government. You would probably pick up the phone very quickly.

So is this survey fake? Of course not - those who don't recognise the satire here should work on their reception skills. But our street survey wants to be a nice utopia and hopefully an effective instrument of intervention.