States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. This also applies to human rights that are threatened by climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – three interlinked threats. In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. States are therefore required to do everything possible to counteract these threats [i].
Under international law [ii], states are obliged to protect all people from human rights abuses caused by corporations, including those resulting from corporate contributions to climate change [iii]. However, economic activity takes place on a global scale in structures that lie outside purely national legislation.
International guidelines such as the ILO Declaration of Principles concerning Business and Social Policy, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Global Compact or ISO 26000 are intended to provide guidance to ensure social and environmental corporate responsibility [iv].
The implementation of these obligations under international law has so far been inadequate, internationally diverse and patchy and does not prevent companies from acting recklessly along their supply chains [v]. The existing regulations are not sufficiently effective in protecting people, the environment and the climate from the harmful effects of economic activity.
Companies release greenhouse gases and methane in almost all value chains. Compliance with the 1.5°C target is being undermined and the human right to a healthy environment is being disregarded worldwide. CO2 reservoirs such as moors, forests or river landscapes with wetlands are being destroyed.
In Colombia, for example, the organisation FEDEPESAN has been fighting against the destruction of a large and ecologically valuable wetland for many years, providing information, education and landscape conservation and taking legal action against the state oil company Ecopetrol, for example. As a result, activists are being threatened. Standing up for human rights in Colombia is life-threatening; in 2023, 127 people who had campaigned for human rights in various areas were killed.
The necessary transformation of our societies towards climate neutrality must also be in line with human rights. The increased demand from car manufacturers, for example, for raw materials such as copper and cobalt for electromobility is currently leading to massive human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which supplies these raw materials [vi]. Because extraction areas are being expanded, villages have been burnt down, people forcibly relocated, subjected to sexualised violence or mistreated [vii] and child labour is not uncommon in the mines. Worldwide, 160 million children [viii] work in the value chains of products that are also sold on our market.
In the past, voluntary commitments to comply with human rights standards from the beginning of the value chain have generally led to unsatisfactory results. In Germany, only around 20% of companies with more than 500 employees have implemented these commitments [ix].
“The behaviour of companies in all sectors of the economy is crucial for the successful transition of the Union to a climate-neutral and green economy in line with the European Green Deal and for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including its human rights and environmental goals. To this end, companies must implement comprehensive procedures to mitigate the negative impact of their business activities on human rights and the environment in their value chains, integrate sustainability into corporate governance and management systems and take human rights, the climate and the environment as well as the long-term resilience of the company into account when making business decisions” [x], is formulated in the EU Commission’s justification for a supply chain law.
People in global economic sectors work under undignified, unhealthy or unfair conditions or cannot live on their wages. Textile products, for example, made by seamstresses without labour protection in Bangladesh [xi], cobalt mined by underage miners in the Congo, fish caught by exploited sailors in the international fishing industry [xii] all end up on our markets. Downstream due diligence obligations (disposal, etc.) are also part of corporate responsibility. Legal regulation is therefore necessary to counteract harmful environmental behaviour, actions that violate human rights and irresponsible disinterest in climate change. Effective climate protection measures include companies drawing up and implementing specific climate protection plans and subjecting them to official monitoring, analysing and actively minimising risks to people, the environment and the climate in the value chain. Companies must be liable for their actions.
The German Supply Chain Act (Gesetz über die unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten in Lieferketten: LkSG), which has been in force since 1 January 2023, regulates for the first time in Germany ‘which due diligence obligations companies must comply with along the supply chain’ [xiii]. Various EU countries have enacted national due diligence laws, which are now being followed by the joint directive (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: CSDDD). This guarantees companies a level and fair playing field in the EU market and legal certainty and is intended to combat conditions that violate human rights in the production of goods entering the European market [xiv]. “To combat climate change, all companies within the scope of application are required to draw up a climate plan to align their corporate strategy with the 1.5°C target, contribute to the goal of climate neutrality and set appropriate emission reduction targets” [xv].
The EU Supply Chain Act, which was approved by a qualified majority of EU member states by the Council of the EU and the Legal Affairs Committee of the EU Parliament in March 2024, will now become binding. It is an EU-wide common basis for obliging companies to fulfil their human rights, climate and environmental due diligence obligations along their value chains. Julia Duchrow, Secretary General of Amnesty International Germany, says: “This will have a positive impact on human rights in corporate activities worldwide” [xvi].
The EU, as a ‘community of values and the world’s largest single market with a global GDP share of 15 per cent and second place in world trade after China, has a particular responsibility’ [xvii]. What is new and improved compared to the current German law is, firstly, the obligation for companies to identify risks of human rights violations and certain environmental damage in their entire supply chains, assess their severity and take countermeasures. This applies to the upstream and, in some cases, the downstream supply chain. “Secondly, there is now, in principle, a liability regime that allows affected parties to sue for damages if the damage could have been prevented” [xviii]. European law applies to transnational situations. Provisions to protect companies are built in under current law. According to an analysis, despite the softening of the original proposal, improvements can be expected in the area of raw materials extraction and textile production as well as in labour rights [xix].
Nevertheless, the joy is clouded. Contrary to the plan formulated in the coalition agreement of the German governing parties for a values-led foreign policy that should place human rights at the centre of its own actions, the negotiating behaviour of the Federal Republic of Germany has significantly worsened the overall far-reaching proposal and almost brought it to a halt in the run-up to the vote. This was despite the fact that a European agreement had already been reached by the end of 2023.
The deteriorations include the fact that, in contrast to the agreed template, only companies with 1,000 employees or more and an annual turnover of 450 million euros are covered (previously 500, 150 million euros). Companies in the mining, agricultural and textile sectors, where human rights violations are particularly common, are excluded from the obligations [xx]. Obligations in the downstream supply chain (disposal, dismantling, recycling, consequences, etc., e.g. the use of pesticides is not taken into account) and certain forms of incentives have also been excluded [xxi]. Furthermore, the directive is not due to apply in full until 2032. The entire financial sector was and is excluded from the outset [xxii].
It is therefore obvious that, despite all the joy at its success, the current law is only a start. Businesses and corporations must align their actions even more resolutely with the well-being of people, a healthy environment and global climate justice. There is no alternative to this human rights obligation of industry and business in view of the climate crisis and the associated threat to human rights and a future worth living for all people.
[i] https://www.un.org/depts/german/menschenrechte/a-hrc-res-48-13.pdf
[ii] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf
[iii] https://amnesty-klimakrise.de/stop-burning-our-rights/# more-information
[iv] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/CSR-Allgemein/CSR-Grundlagen/csr-grundlagen.html
[v] https://www.ecchr.eu/fall/eu-lieferketten-gesetz/
[vi] https://www.amnesty.de/informieren/laender/demokratische-republik-kongo
[vii] ibid.
[viii ]https://www.amnesty.de/informieren/themen/kinder-jugendliche
[ix] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/Wirtschaft-Menschenrechte/Gesetz-ueber-die-unternehmerischen-Sorgfaltspflichten-in-Lieferketten/Hintergrund-und-Entwicklung/hintergrund-und-entwicklung.html
[x] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:bc4dcea4-9584-11ec-b4e4-01aa75ed71a1.0007.02/DOC_1&format=PDF
[xi] https://www.amnesty.de/informieren/aktuell/bangladesch-zehn-jahre-rana-plaza-unglueck-textilindustrie-arbeitsbedingungen
[xii] https://www.amnesty.de/arbeitsbedingungen-fischerei-ausbeutung
[xiii] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/Wirtschaft-Menschenrechte/Gesetz-ueber-die-unternehmerischen-Sorgfaltspflichten-in-Lieferketten/Hintergrund-und-Entwicklung/hintergrund-und-entwicklung.html
[xiv] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/Wirtschaft-Menschenrechte/Europa/Lieferketten-Gesetzesinitiative-in-der-EU/lieferketten-gesetzesinitiative-der-eu.html#doc8d39cd84-f2ab-4dc1-94b1-4982fc7c5232bodyText1
[xv] ebd.
[xvi] https://www.amnesty.de/deutschland-eu-lieferkettengesetz-verabschiedung-fortschritt-fuer-menschenrechte
[xvii] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/Wirtschaft-Menschenrechte/Europa/Lieferketten-Gesetzesinitiative-in-der-EU/lieferketten-gesetzesinitiative-der-eu.html
[xviii] https://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/DE/Wirtschaft-Menschenrechte/Europa/Lieferketten-Gesetzesinitiative-in-der-EU/lieferketten-gesetzesinitiative-der-eu.html
[xix] https://www.germanwatch.org/sites/default/files/briefing_lieferkettengesetz_und_nachhaltige_entwicklung.pdf
[xx] https://lieferkettengesetz.de/aktuelles/
[xxi] ebd.
[xxii] https://www.gls.de/privatkunden/gls-bank/aktuelles/neuigkeiten/eu-lieferkettengesetz-bislang-ohne-finanzsektor/, Stand 29.11.2023