"Business and Human Rights: Access to Justice and Effective Remedies", Feb 2022

"Whilst the European Union has put in place an increasingly sophisticated regulatory and policy framework aimed at the promotion of human rights, the 2020 comparative study Business and human rights – access to remedy by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights confirms the persistence of practical and legal barriers to access to remedy in the European context for victims of business-related human rights abuses. Many of the challenges identified could be addressed through targeted policy and regulatory interventions at Member State level, but also through harmonisation of the interventions on the part of the EU...

The aim of this Report is to identify a range of possible regulatory and/or soft-law options, both at Member State and at the EU level, intended to increase access to remedy in the EU and ensure corporate human rights compliance...When not otherwise stated, the Report refers to undertakings of any size and sector based in the EU, as well as to undertakings established in non-EU countries that operate in the internal market of the EU selling goods or providing services.

...In particular, the Project Team addresses several issues that it considers key to reducing the persisting barriers that hinder access to justice and effective remedies for business-related human rights violations. These include[:] appropriate legal procedural rules, availability of judicial collective redress procedures and of effective non-judicial mechanisms, access to information, private international law jurisdictional rules and applicable law regimes, as well as the link between human rights due diligence and remedies..."