MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

with recommendations to the Commission on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability (2020/2129(INL))

The European Parliament, ...

Considers that voluntary due diligence standards have severe limitations and that the Union should urgently adopt minimum requirements for undertakings to identify, prevent, cease, mitigate, monitor, disclose, account, address and remediate human rights, environmental and governance risks in their entire value chain; believes that this would be beneficial for stakeholders, as well as for businesses in terms of harmonization, legal certainty and a level playing field; stresses that this would enhance the reputation of EU undertakings and of the Union as a standard setter; ...

Further considers that in order to enable victims to obtain remedy, undertakings should be held liable for the damage the undertakings under their control have caused or contributed to where the latter have, in the course of their business relationships with the former, committed violations of internationally recognized human rights or have caused environmental harm;

Considers that conducting due diligence should not absolve undertakings from liability for the harm they have caused or have contributed to; further considers, however, that having a robust due diligence process in place may help undertakings to avoid causing harm; ...

Stresses that victims of business-related adverse impacts are often not sufficiently protected by the law of the country where the harm has been caused; considers, in this regard, that victims of human rights abuses committed by EU undertakings should be allowed to choose the law of a legal system with high human rights standards, which could be that of the place where the defendant undertaking is domiciled; ...