Filip Gregor
Head of the Responsible Companies Team
The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) and the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), are pleased to announce the launch of our Human Rights Due Diligence Report, the common approaches and available options resulting from the “Human Rights Due Diligence Project.”
Over the past year, our group of Experts (Mark Taylor, Professor Olivier de Schutter, Robert Thompson and Professor Anita Ramasastry) has examined the issue of how States meet their duty to protect through using their regulatory authority to encourage or mandate human rights due diligence behavior by corporations.
Their examination was informed by private consultations with over 50 lawyers, practitioners, and representatives of civil society from each continent. The report will offer the interpretation of common approaches and available options for States to meet this duty.
We will launch our report at a side event of the U.N. Forum on Business and Human Rights, with a Keynote Address from Member of European Parliament Mr. Richard Howitt.
Please join us at the Palais des Nations on 3 December 2012 for the report launch and a reception to follow at Bar Escargot.
To RSVP, please register or email Katie Shay.
Responses are appreciated before 28 November 2012.
More information about the Human Rights Due Diligence Project.
In mid-December, the European Commission acknowledged a large part of the arguments put forward by the Czechia in an effort to prevent the expansion and continuation of illegal mining at the Turów mine in Poland, that endangers the sources of drinking water for thousands of people in the Liberec region and, according to new studies, has serious impacts on groundwater in Germany as well. Frank Bold's lawyers, who defend the interests of Czech citizens, have long been involved in the case.
The Frank Bold Society and the Neighbourhood Association Uhelná called on the Czech government today to be more consistent in its negotiations with Poland over mining at the Turów brown coal mine. According to both organisations, the government did not have enough information or time to prepare an agreement that would truly protect Czech interests. Moreover, the government has acted in a non-transparent manner by failing to inform the public in advance of the terms of the agreement being prepared, which should lead to the withdrawal of the action against Poland at the EU Court of Justice. The organisations have therefore drawn up a document with seven basic demands on which the Czech side should insist.
The European Commission recently introduced a draft of the revised EU ETS Directive which, among other things, proposes that 100 % of ETS revenues should be used for environmental measures. We welcome this idea but we’re also sceptical about how the ETS revenues are used in the Czech Republic. Therefore, we have prepared an analysis mapping the use of ETS revenues in Czech Republic and sent it to the European Commission as an input for the recent public consultation. The main conclusions are presented below.
