“Complementarity of UN and EU instruments on Business and Human Rights”, 20 March 2025

With the entry into force of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in July 2024, many stakeholders involved in corporate accountability wondered how the adopted legislation could complement an Internationally Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises regarding Human Rights (LBI). In 2022, a team of legal experts conducted a study aimed at analysing the competencies, comparisons, and complementarity of both instruments. At that time, the CSDDD was still a proposal that underwent changes reflected in the adopted file.

Following up on the initial study, a team of legal experts concluded a new analysis on the “Complementarity of the Legally Binding Instrument on Business and Human Rights and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive”. This study considers the EU CSDDD as adopted in July 2024. The European Commission’s recent publication of an Omnibus Simplification Package introduces modifications to the CSDDD that could influence its complementarity with the LBI... Notwithstanding, this recent study retains its significance as it illustrates how the CSDDD, in its enacted form, can support the LBI process, leading to an improved draft. 

The study assesses the complementarity of the LBI and the CSDDD while analysing how the two processes can mutually reinforce each other…