Dr. Chris O'Connell:

Good afternoon. I thank members for their attention.

Meaningful stakeholder engagement is essential to effective human rights and environmental due diligence, and in particular to the prevention of abuses and violations. Stakeholders, including unions, consumers, national human rights institutions, civil society organisations, communities and others affected by corporations, are essential sources of information, conflict avoidance and resolution and access to remedy. For these reasons, the OECD guidelines recommend timely, accessible, appropriate and safe engagement at all stages of the due diligence process and the CSDDD sets out a clear framework for meaningful stakeholder engagement.

In stark contrast, the European Commission’s omnibus proposal would reduce stakeholder engagement to a box-ticking exercise, by restricting the definition; excluding consumers, national human rights institutions and environmental NGOs; reducing the stages of the due diligence process at which companies are required to consult stakeholders; and removing the possibility of representative actions by unions and civil society organisations, which is a key access-to-justice provision. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, BHRRC, “Civic space restrictions create an ‘information black box,’ leaving companies and investors with gaps in knowledge about potential or actual negative human rights impacts”.

The provisions of the omnibus proposal must be understood in the context of closing civil society space. The EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights considers civil society space to be intimately linked to the capacity of member states to respect, protect and fulfil fundamental rights. Yet the evidence is clear: civil society space is being systematically closed globally. For example, global freedoms have been in decline for 18 consecutive years, almost 40% of the world's population live in autocratising countries, while only 3.6% currently live in countries with open civic space.

Trócaire views closing civic space as a threat to all of our work. Among those most heavily impacted are people voicing concerns about business-related risks or harm.

Some 660 human rights defenders suffered attacks in 2024, bringing to more than 6,400 the number of attacks since January 2015. A total of 20% of the attacks and 31% of the killings documented were indigenous peoples, despite them making up just 6% of the world's population. These figures are very much the tip of the iceberg. Of most concern, Global Witness reports the murders of more that 2,100 women and men since 2012 for seeking to protect the climate, land and environment around them, often against business operations. Some are from communities supported by Trócaire. I will mention Juan López, a respected community leader and environmentalist who opposed a super-polluting mine in a nature reserve. He was shot dead near his local Catholic church in Honduras on 14 September 2024. Juan is one of many. This is the context into which fall claims by the European Commission that obliging the largest and most powerful corporations to carry out risk-based due diligence across their global value chains, take reasonable steps to prevent or mitigate harms, engage stakeholders and provide a measure of justice for victims is too heavy a burden to bear.

Civil society in Europe also faces growing legal, political and practical challenges. According to the latest International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC, global rights index, Europe has experienced the biggest decline in respect for fundamental rights and freedoms seen in any region in the past ten years. Coupled with this trend is an unprecedented rise in attacks on civil society organisations at EU level and threatened or actual cuts to vital development, humanitarian and human rights funding. The omnibus proposal, which seeks to exclude civil society and those working to protect the environment, in particular, while simultaneously offloading onto it the burden that rightly belongs to large companies to identify risks in their value chains, must be viewed as an extension of this trend. As such, it has all the hallmarks of a system that is designed to fail. It is not hyperbole to say that civil society in Europe and beyond is in the fight of its life. The members of this committee have an opportunity today to send a clear signal that they support civil society at this crucial time.

I would like to remind committee members what it is we are discussing here, the meat of the matter that is obscured by empty buzz words like "simplification". The tragedy of Rana Plaza was thought to be a watershed moment when a range of political, business and human rights actors came together to vow "Never again." This consensus brought results, including the corporate sustainability due diligence drive, CSDDD, and with it, the hope of preventing future disasters. The Commission wants to overturn that consensus and turn the clock back to 2013, but this is magical thinking of the highest order. It is clear that the circumstances that gave rise to this consensus, threats and attacks against workers and communities in the name of profit maximisation, environmental and climate harms and legal uncertainty for victims and companies have not disappeared. If anything, they have worsened. Repeating the word "simplification" will not change reality. Enacting and implementing strong gender-responsive human rights and environmental due diligence across global value chains, by contrast, can and will do so.