At the occasion of a Business and Human Rights conference in Brussels on 2 December 2019, the Finnish EU Council Presidency put forward an "Agenda for Action on Business and Human Rights" with more than 20 proposals for measures in the fields of public funding, legislation and judicial remedies, as well as trade and development cooperation. The agenda acknowledges the need for "further EU-wide initiatives, including regulation on mandatory human rights due diligence."

In his keynote to the conference, Professor John Ruggie affirmed that the "smart mix of measures" embodied in the UNGPs is about both voluntary and mandatory measures.

A "Perspectives Paper" with contributions from the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB), the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) and others was released prior to the conference. The programme and webcast are available here.