On 23 February 2022, the European Commission released its proposal for a directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence. This directive could represent a landmark step forward in minimising the negative impacts of businesses on workers, communities and the environment worldwide. In response, over 220 NGOs and trade unions from around the world welcome the proposal as an essential and long-awaited step toward corporate accountability, responsible business conduct and access to justice.
However, the proposal contains significant flaws that risk preventing the directive from achieving the positive impact that people, planet, and climate urgently need. The undersigned human rights, labour and environmental organisations and networks call on the European Parliament and EU Member States to strengthen the text in line with what EU citizens, workers and communities affected by corporate abuses worldwide have vocally and publicly demanded.
The joint statement outlines our collective views on how to improve the proposal to guarantee that the law will effectively prevent corporate harm to human rights, the environment and climate; as well as provide victims of corporate abuse with access to effective remedies.
Yesterday, on 5 November 2018, a lawsuit against the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) on liability for health damages and death of her husband from lung cancer was filed with the District Court in Prague 10. The plaintiff seeks damages for lung cancer, which she has managed to cure, but her husband has succumbed to the illness in October. The cause of the disease is seen in the long-term excessive concentration of air pollutants at their place of residence in Ostrava-Radvanice and in the fact that the MoE failed to provide effective measures to decrease the pollution to legal limit values.
The Brussels office of the public interest law firm Frank Bold is currently recruiting a Research Intern to start full-time in January 2017 for a period of four to six months.
Where has the European Commission gone beyond and where has it fallen short?
