UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

Open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights

10^th Session

16 December 2024

Mr Chair Rapporteur,

The EU and its Member States would like to thank you and the secretariat of the High Commissioner’s Office for organising this session. We warmly congratulate you for your appointment as Chair Rapporteur and look forward to collaborating with you and your team.

As we approach 2030, the EU remains committed to delivering on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as well as on the targets and objectives of the European Green Deal.

Delivering on existing commitments and addressing new and emerging challenges require cooperation both across borders and across the whole of society. The Pact for the Future, adopted at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024, explicitly encourages the private sector, especially large corporations, to contribute to sustainability and protecting our planet and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and sustainable development goals, through partnership-based approaches and accountability.

Against this background, the EU has taken additional steps to advance the Business and Human Rights agenda since we last addressed this Working Group:

• The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive entered into force on 25 July 2024 and will start to apply progressively as from July 2027. It is grounded in international frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and introduces a due diligence duty for large companies, subject to public enforcement and civil liability in case of non-compliance. The Directive is designed to foster continuous engagement with value chain partners and on a risk- based approach. It cross-refers to the rights, obligations and prohibitions stemming from broadly recognised human rights and international labour rights conventions and multilateral environmental agreements. The Directive also foresees accompanying measures aimed at supporting the necessary capacity of business partners and stakeholders, including in partner countries. Disengagement is only a duty of last resort under the CSDDD and applies only if there is a serious risk of Human Rights violations and all other options to address them have failed.
• The Critical Raw Materials Act entered into force in May 2024 aimed at ensuring secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials, including those necessary for the energy and digital transitions, and developing mutually beneficial partnerships with partner countries. Strategic projects supported by the EU must be implemented sustainably.
• The Regulation banning products made with forced labour from the EU market entered into force on 13 December and will start applying in practice at the end of 2027.

These laws complement a range of other sustainability measures, including on transparency and sector-specific due diligence, we referred to in previous statements.

EU action on business and human rights builds on a growing consensus towards mandatory rules as an important means of achieving better protection for victims and legal certainty for businesses and shows the importance of relying on frameworks that are widely accepted and implementable in practice.

We have come a long way in terms of adopting an ambitious legislative framework for corporate respect for human rights. The focus now is on implementation in order to deliver real outcomes, for people, the planet and business. We are committed to working closely with partners, to promote the global implementation of universally agreed human rights and labour rights standards, to provide support for implementation and adaptation to the new requirements, and to anticipate and address any possible unintended negative effects.

Mr Chair Rapporteur,

We would like to express our appreciation for the constructive efforts you and your predecessor have made during the inter-sessional period supported by the friends of the Chair, which include 2 EU Member States.

We welcome the adoption by consensus of Decision 56/116 on 11 July 2024, followed by the swift appointment of legal experts.

We also thank you for your proposed roadmap for 2025 and look forward to engaging constructively in the inter-sessional consultations on clusters of thematic issues and articles of the draft LBI. We agree with your view that consultations and discussions should cover all aspects of the LBI, and we welcome your efforts to ensure that there are sufficient opportunities to discuss aspects on which the positions of Members and stakeholders diverge.

As we have stated in previous sessions, we support efforts to adopt an international legal framework promoting the respect of human rights by businesses. A well designed and broadly supported UN Legally Binding Instrument has the potential to enhance global protection against business-related human rights abuses and create a global level playing field for all companies worldwide.

An international instrument should build on the consensual framework provided by the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights, including on the issue of personal scope, be crafted in an inclusive manner, be legally sound, and practically implementable. It should also be balanced and proportionate in its obligations, avoiding unnecessary burdens on small and medium-sized companies.

We also think the LBI should promote an integrated approach that addresses the critical interdependence between combatting environmental degradation and climate change, and fully realising human rights taking into account the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

In conclusion, the current 10th session marks an important milestone since the start of the process in 2014.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive entered into force in July 2024. It provide an important basis for the EU engagement, especially with respect to human rights due diligence and related provisions.

It will be for the new European Commission, which has now taken office, and the EU Member States, to take a decision on a possible EU negotiation mandate, building in particular on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

In the meantime, we are ready to share our recent experience with designing, adopting and implementing legislation relevant for the advancement of the business and human rights agenda. As in previous sessions, we will provide comments on the different articles, in light of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.  We look forward to contributing meaningfully to the conclusions of the 10^th session.

We encourage the Chair Rapporteur to continue his engagement with UN members and stakeholders – including civil society organisations, trade unions and the business community – in order to build the necessary consensus towards an instrument that can effectively lead to globally accepted standards.

To achieve this global level playing field, it is important to strive for a wide, cross-regional consensus between UN member states.

The EU stands ready to work with the Chair Rapporteur and friends of the Chair, as well as other partners, to this end.

We look forward to the discussion during this session.

I thank you, Mr. Chair Rapporteur.