How Change Can End Corporate Abuse
Last edited Fri Dec 22, 2023, 07:22 AM - Edit history (1)
| Opinion
Dec 21, 2023 at 11:50 AM EST
By Mary Robinson and Phil Bloomer
former president of Ireland; executive director of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Hats off to the European Union (EU). Europe has made a landmark agreement to oblige big business to reduce human rights abuses and environmental harms—or face legal action. This is potentially transformative news for workers and communities worldwide, caught in abusive value chains; from fast fashion seamstresses in Bangladesh or Myanmar, to Indigenous Peoples dispossessed of their land for new energy projects, to human rights and environmental defenders in Central America, whose protest is silenced by violence. It is also good news for responsible business who supported the directive to gain a "level playing field" and stop reckless, abusive companies from undercutting them.
The groundbreaking nature of the shift may be obscured by its byzantine official title, "Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive." But groundbreaking it appears to be.
This seismic shift comes after 40 years of failed reliance on "voluntary" human rights and environmental action by companies. Globally, this is the first attempt to enshrine the international standards set by the United Nations and the OECD in laws across a major economic bloc, and with legal liability and administrative penalties for companies that do not comply. It enshrines the "risk-based" approach—companies within scope must use their brains to identify and address more severe and likely human rights and environmental risks.
This directive also signals a desire for democratic renewal. As the world is assailed by authoritarian populists feeding on the public's fear, and loss of faith in leaders' willingness to tackle unsustainable inequality of power and wealth in economies, alongside climate breakdown, this directive demonstrates governments and parliamentarians of good faith can act decisively for the common good.
More:
https://www.newsweek.com/how-change-can-end-corporate-abuse-opinion-1854646
