EU: CSDDD weakened by Omnibus & corporate lobbying, but effective transposition can still protect people and planet, says Global Witness
"What happened to the CSDDD? EU law survives corporate pushback, but only just", 12 February 2026
Now the EU’s CSDDD has finally been agreed, we assess how far it can go to protect the environment and human rights, after months of corporate lobbying to water it down.
Amid intense corporate lobbying, a compromise emerged at the end of 2025 between centre-right and far-right EU political groups, which paved the way for a substantially diluted CSDDD. This involved major cuts to its ambitions and a stark narrowing of its scope...
The CSDDD has survived as a mandatory human rights and due diligence law, but with some significant caveats. Companies within the scope of the CSDDD must identify the most severe and likely risks in their chain of activities, then are required to address those risks.
The question of how to introduce civil liability regimes and allow victims of corporate abuse access to EU courts has been left to the different EU Member States. This could lead to a more fragmented legal situation, leaving victims in limbo and at the mercy of individual states’ attitudes towards implementing the CSDDD. If a harmonised EU approach to civil liability had been adopted, corporate abuse victims would find it easier to seek justice, regardless of where the company was based...
The law’s final version has failed to deliver the momentous victory for justice that we had hoped for. Not having mandatory climate transition plans for big polluters in place is a particularly big missed opportunity in the fight against the climate crisis.
But the introduction of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence requirements for large companies is a significant step forward. It is now up to rightsholders and their supporters to consider how we can now deploy this law to the environment’s – and corporate abuse victims’ – advantage.
The battle over the CSDDD underscores the need to continue fighting to dismantle the corporate and fossil fuel capture that derails our policymaking. Now the fight continues to advocate for effective transposition and stronger provisions in EU Member States, and to ensure communities are educated about their rights under the CSDDD.