GENEVA - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Friday urged the European Union to ensure changes to its current rules requiring large companies to identify and address severe risks in their value chains do not depart from key human rights principles.
He expressed regret that some of the proposals being considered to the landmark EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive by lawmakers at the final stage of the review process risk undermining the Directive's effectiveness, enforceability, and integrity, weakening its alignment with the internationally recognized UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Some of the proposals would reduce companies' ability to identify their human rights risks, for instance by restricting what information they can ask of their suppliers and other business partners.
"It is important that a revised EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive retains a risk-based approach to human rights due diligence and remains aligned with the UN Guiding Principles," said Türk.
"Many companies subject to the EU legislation have already invested in this internationally recognized approach to risk management, and consider it an efficient and effective way to address and manage human rights risks," he added.
If the revised EU Directive departs from the UN Guiding Principles with a substantially different approach to risk management, the effect on businesses might require them to invest in parallel due diligence systems - one to comply with the directive and another to meet existing international standards and other laws aligned with them.
"I am concerned that besides misaligning EU rules with international standards, such parallel due diligence systems might impose extra costs and complexity on companies, at a time when it is already increasingly becoming clear that failures by businesses to properly identify and address severe human rights risks have financial, reputational and legal costs for the companies themselves," said Türk.
The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, a much welcome business and human rights regulatory initiative, came into effect last year, and requires larger companies to take reasonable steps to identify and address their adverse impacts on human rights and the environment and to put into effect a transition plan for climate change mitigation.
