Western Europe and Other States Group (WEOG):…

4:40pm – 6:00pm Western Europe and Other States Group (WEOG): Recent regulation in business and human rights

This session will consider the recent legislation on business and human rights across WEOG States, especially in relation to mandatory human rights due diligence. This has included legislation in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway, as well as the proposed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. There have also been proposals for legislation across other States, and existing legislation has been reviewed in some States, such as the Australian Modern Slavery Act. At the same time, there has been legislation about the imports of goods by businesses. There are many governments in the WEOG region (and in other regions) that are considering whether to introduce legislation on this area or are aware of the possible effects on businesses of legislation in other States. There is also a concern by businesses that a diversity of legislative measures can create difficulties for them in compliance, and a lack of legal certainty, so coherence and consistency would be important. In addition, many civil society actors are seeking to ensure that the legislation created serves the purpose of increasing both the accountability of businesses for their adverse human rights and environmental impacts, and access to remedies by victims. A particular focus of the session will be the processes by which these pieces of legislation came about, and how they reached the final stages. This will help all stakeholders to share the lessons learned from efforts by governments and regional entities to drive greater policy coherence on business and human rights issues through regulation, and to scale up the implementation by business enterprises of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. It will also facilitate multi-stakeholder dialogue around the way forward in WEOG States.