Plenary Session 1: What Does Effective Due Diligence Look Like?

Part 1

Comparing and Contrasting Approaches: from Modern Slavery Acts to Mandatory Due Diligence

Time:    9:45 AM to 11:00 AM

Room:   Ceremonial Classroom

Participants

• Meg Roggensack, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) (moderator)

• Abby Henderson, ICAR

• Marilyn Croser, Corporate Responsibility Coalition (CORE)

• Filip Gregor, Frank Bold, Alliance for Corporate Transparency

• Claudia Saller, European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ)

Background Information

The UN Guiding Principles require governments to promote corporate respect for human rights by encouraging corporations to undertake due diligence efforts, including risk assessment, policy development, implementation, monitoring and reporting, and remediation.

Over the past ten years, governments have undertaken various legal, regulatory, and policy initiatives to encourage corporate human rights due diligence. These have included sector or issue specific initiatives like the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals legislation, the UK Modern Slavery Act, and more recently the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive and the French Duty of Vigilance Law. 

This panel will examine the range of government actions that have been put in place to encourage more effective corporate human rights due diligence and the continuing challenges in achieving that. Among questions panelists will consider are:

Questions about the Laws

How well do various legal and regulatory initiatives––such as existing modern slavery acts, the EU Non-financial Reporting Directive, and the French Duty of Vigilance––perform in promoting corporate due diligence? What are the main shortcomings of existing initiatives to ensure effective compliance by corporations and improvements for rights holders? What can existing initiatives tell us about the minimum requirements must be in place for emerging laws on corporate human rights due diligence to be effective?

Questions about Government Responses to the Laws

What support are governments providing to improve corporate implementation and compliance? What additional activities should governments undertake to support existing laws and regulations?

Questions about the Future of mHRDD Legislation

What would an ideal mandatory human rights due diligence law look like? Are sectorial approaches likely to be more effective? Where are best opportunities, currently, for promoting such measures and how can we coordinate efforts? How have companies responded to proposals for and passing of mHRDD legislation? How can we engage businesses on mHRDD legislation?

Resources

Modern Slavery Act and Transparency in Supply Chains Legislation

• ICAR & FLEX: Full Disclosure: Toward Better Modern Slavery Reporting (2019)

• CORE: Short Guides on Modern Slavery Reporting

• CORE: Beyond Compliance: Effective Reporting Under the Modern Slavery Act (2016)

• BHRRC: Modern Slavery Registry  

EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive

• Alliance for Corporate Transparency: 2018 Research Report

• ECCJ: A Human Rights Review of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive (2019)

French Duty of Vigilance Law

• Sherpa: Vigilance Plans Reference Guide, En (2019)

• Sherpa: Duty of Vigilance Act, Year 1: Companies Must do Better, Fr (2019)

Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence

• ECCJ: Key Features of Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Legislation (2018)

• OECD: OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct (2018)

• OECD: Sector Specific Guidance

• UNWG: UN Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (2018)

• ECCJ: ECCJ submission to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights consultation on “Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence – identifying and leveraging emerging practice” (2018)

 Additional Resources

• BHRinLaw