After at least two delays pressure is mounting on the European Commission to publish its proposals for mandatory EU human rights due diligence, with 100 companies coming together to demand movement on the legislation.

Corporates from across Europe—among them Ikea, Danone and Aviva Investors—have jointly signed a letter calling on the EU to accelerate its work on laws that would ask companies to monitor human rights in their supply chains. Proposals should have been published last autumn but have so far yet to materialise despite much debate and support from the not-for-profit and corporate sectors. There is speculation that business associations may have caused a delay, with resistance to the proposals under consideration.

The letter repeats previous calls for the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and guidelines from the OECD to form the bedrock for new law.

“We firmly believe that strong and ambitious EU legislation would make a tangible contribution to improving human rights and environmental conditions along global value chains while helping businesses become more resilience and future-orientated,” the letter says.

It adds those who signed it are “deeply concerned” about delays and urges the European Commission to move forward “swiftly” on reform.

EU human rights legislation

It was in March last year that European parliamentarians handed commissioners the challenge of creating mandatory due diligence legislation for companies. At the time they said efforts to encourage voluntary human rights due diligence in supply chains had failed and that compliance with a new law should be a condition of entry to the single market.

A parliamentary statement said the EU should urgently adopt “binding requirements” for companies “to identify, assess, prevent, cease, mitigate, monitor, communicate, account for, address and remediate potential and/or actual adverse impacts on human rights, the environment and good governance in their value chain”.

The new letter is not the first effort to exert pressure on the Commission to push ahead with new rules. In December a slew of NGOs, including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Friends of the Earth, published their own letter slamming delays. “It is unacceptable that such a crucial new law that can help millions of people to demand justice against human rights violations can help safeguard our environment our environment and the climate, is delayed for a third time,” the NGOs said.

The new joint letter sets out demands for the legislation. It says new laws should have a broad scope, applying to “all businesses established in the EU, regardless of size”; due diligence should apply to the “full value chain”; avoid a tick-box approach; and involve “meaningful” stakeholder engagement. the letter also calls for “legal consequences” for companies that fail to comply.

‘Ambitious proposal’

Reasons for the delay remain unclear. It’s possible the Commission’s attention is focused elsewhere, in particular a new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive detailing non-financial company disclosure requirements. Some observers believe the draft may have been too broad and involved impossible or costly responsibilities.

However, there remains a concern that the arguments of business associations are gaining ground in Brussels. Which makes hearing from companies “crucial,” according to Johannes Blankenbach of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. “This new joint call is a strong sign that businesses of various sizes, big brands as well as SMEs, do support an ambitious proposal with credible accountability mechanisms, including Covid liability, and proves associations do not necessarily speak for all their members.”

There is some expectation that proposals will appear later this month. Until then the Commission will remain under pressure.