We use cookies on this site to provide you with an informative and engaging experience and also to help us to continually improve our site for you. Without allowing cookies certain features of the site will not be available. To learn more about how we use cookies, please view our cookie policy. By clicking on ‘I AGREE’, you consent to our use of cookies on this device in accordance with our policy.

Logo of Wolters Kluwer, Kluwer Law Online
European Business Law Review
Search content button

Home > All journals > European Business Law Review > 35(3) >

Accountability in the EU for Corporate Human Rights and Environmental Harm: A Tale of Two Systems or Potential for Complementary Twinning?

Cover image ofEuropean Business Law Review

$25.00 - Rental (PDF) *

$49.00 - Article (PDF) *

*service fee may apply
Accountability in the EU for Corporate Human Rights and Environmental Harm: A Tale of Two Systems or Potential for Complementary Twinning?


European Business Law Review
Volume 35, Issue 3/4 (2024) pp. 429 – 452

https://doi.org/10.54648/eulr2024026



Abstract

The EU’s proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive seeks to enhance responsible business conduct through mandatory risk-based due diligence, administrative supervision by national authorities, and civil liability. If adopted the administrative accountability and remedy scheme envisaged by the proposal will exist alongside another corporate accountability mechanism, the National Contact Points established under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Having two parallel systems will likely result in divergent findings on due diligence as well as remedial responses. Such inconsistency will neither benefit companies trying to understand what is expected and demanded in terms of risk-based due diligence, nor affected people who are victims of business-related societal harm. To avoid that, this article argues that a coordinated system in which NCPs are assigned some of the administrative supervision tasks envisaged by the CSDDD (or similar measures that may be introduced by states, if the CSDDD is not adopted) will serve accountability and legal certainty, including for remedy, better than two distinct systems whose overlapping competences may undermine those objectives.


Keywords

Accountability for business-related societal harm, business and human rights, corporate sustainability due diligence, legal certainty, National Contact Points (NCPs) national supervisory authorities, OECD Guidelines, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) proposal, remedy


Extract




Subscribe to this journal

Interested in a subscription? Contact our sales team

Browse by practice area
Share
Stay up to date


RSSETOC