Dr. Chris O'Connell:

For many years, the Irish Coalition for Business and Human Rights has very much called for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation at regional level. In fact, there is more to preventing human rights abuses and providing access to justice when they do occur than due diligence, but it is a significant and important measure. When given binding legislative status, it has real power. For that reason, we called for, advocated and welcomed the passing last year of the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, CSDDD, in the EU. We did so not without caveats but nevertheless saw it was a strong instrument that individual member states could transpose and possibly strengthen further. Instead, what we have seen, almost since the directive’s introduction and particularly since the last elections and the election of the Commission, has been a 180-degree turn from the general direction of travel of the previous Commission. That direction of travel was characterised by the push for the European Green Deal. We are now very much going in the opposite direction. That green deal is being ripped up piece by piece. There is pretty strong evidence to suggest that intense corporate lobbying has been a significant factor in the push in this direction. Fossil fuel companies, in particular, are increasingly associated with some of the aspects of the change to the so-called Omnibus I simplification package or legislation, but there are a range of other omnibus packages being pushed through along with other measures, such as a planned “28th regime”, which would create something almost like a special economic zone within the EU itself that corporations could opt into.

Recently, we heard in response to parliamentary questions that we had proposed that Ireland wanted to see better regulation and not deregulation. Also recently, President von der Leyen said that what the EU needed was deregulation. It is clear that this is what is happening. To say we want better regulation and not deregulation is simply not credible anymore. We are deeply concerned about it. Something like a harmonised civil liability regime that will provide some measure of access to justice for communities and defenders like those here with us today is essential. The levels of impunity we have discussed already and the ways to avoid accountability through complex corporate structures, placing assets out of the reach of relevant jurisdictions and so on are so strong that removing the harmonised civil liability regime in the EU’s directive is incredibly damaging and, I would say, fatal to its ambitions. Again, this is where we come back to the need for a binding treaty at UN level. Even the CSDDD, strong as it was, had a regional focus and certain gaps that would still have allowed a degree of impunity. The treaty offers the possibility of a level playing field, setting a global standard and having that standard binding and enforceable across all companies and jurisdictions, and that is what we are really hoping to see today.