"Table human rights due diligence law, MEPs tell Commission", 28 March 2019

MEPs have launched ambitious plans for an EU law requiring companies to carry out human rights due diligence in their supply chains.

The demand of the next European Commission is at the heart of the shadow EU Action plan launched on 19 March by the European Parliament’s Responsible Business Conduct Working Group...

Such a law would require companies to carry out checks on their supply chains and look at risks that their activities may be harming human rights...

Almost half of all major EU companies have been the subject of documented accusations of human rights violations...

Businesses stress the need for a level playing field and a harmonised approach to avoid overlapping EU and national laws...

The European Commission has welcomed the Action Plan but has so far refused to commit to tabling new legislation.

On 20 March, the Commission published its own Staff Working Document assessing progress towards meeting the UNGPs. The EU executive had been “encouraging companies to carry out appropriate due diligence, including with respect to human rights protection along their supply chains”, the paper argues.

A 2011 commitment from the European Commission to develop an Action Plan on responsible business conduct has been left unfulfilled for almost a decade and is likely to lapse yet again with the outgoing Commission...

[C]ivil society activists and companies are also anxious to ensure that any new due diligence regulation is not just based on ‘knowing and showing’, and that there are sanctions for non-compliance...