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Contents: I. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: a missed opportunity. II. The gradual weakening of the rules of Private International Law in the process of drafting the Directive. III. The law applicable to companies’ liability for human rights abuses under the Due Diligence Directive. 1. Article 29 of the Directive and Member States’ civil liability regimes. 2. The Directive and the law applicable to companies’ civil liability for human rights abuses. IV. Access to justice and procedural law under the Directive. V. Conclusions.
Abstract: Following the enactment of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Private International Law remains pivotal in both guaranteeing access to justice for victims and establishing the applicable law governing the corporate civil liability regime for human rights abuses. The due diligence framework set out under the Directive contains the minimum requirements that companies must comply with in order to establish a due diligence process on a staggered basis. However, it fails to include a set of rules either on civil liability derived from non-compliance or on the remediation of possible damages caused; consequently, in such cases, the Member States’ laws, together with Private International Law, must be applied to complement the regime related to non-contractual liability. As this paper will show, references to Private International Law were amended and curtailed throughout the drafting process, culminating in a final text that favours the prior harmonisation of substantive law. Moreover, it even leaves it to the discretion of Member States to treat matters related to companies’ due diligence as mandatory rules, ultimately inhibiting any progress that could be made in the area of Private International Law.
Keywords: Due Diligence Directive, sustainability, civil liability, Private International Law, Business, human rights and environment, human rights and the environment
