Author: Carlos Tornero
MEPs eye EU law on ESG corporate due diligence giving teeth to Ruggie Principles and OECD guidelines MEPs eye EU law on ESG corporate due diligence giving teeth to Ruggie Principles and OECD guidelines MEPs eye EU law on ESG corporate due diligence giving teeth to Ruggie Principles and OECD guidelines
Jan 28th, 2021
The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) has approved a draft legislative initiative that advocates for corporate mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence, a project that has been contested by Brussels-based organisations BusinessEurope and EuropeanIssuers.
JURI’s MEPs overwhelmingly voted for the report (21 against 1) proposing rules for companies to prevent adverse impacts on human rights, the environment and good governance in their value chain. A list of such impacts would be drawn up in line with the Taxonomy Regulation, according to the report.
Effectively, the project would set out in EU law the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (aka ‘Ruggie Principles’) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
In addition, there are already due diligence laws in the EU in place covering sectors such as conflict minerals or timber and forestry. The current project would expand the princip…