Chinese Energy Companies in Africa: Implications for the Foreign Policy of an Authoritarian State

Abstract

notes that companies are increasingly being held accountable for their extraterritorial impacts on human rights, as well as environmental and climate issues. As a result, she concludes that companies can now be held responsible for adverse impacts throughout their entire value chain. Part IV is devoted entirely to the negotiations for an internationally binding treaty recounting the previous negotiation rounds, providing a critical assessment, and exploring challenges as well as opportunities. The concluding section highlights the remaining actions required to effectively implement human rights and environmental due diligence. It ends with a strong statement that the business and human rights movement has not yet addressed systemic issues and continues to promote a system founded on growth and free trade. These principles lie at the root of power imbalances and unjust business practices. The book stands out for its inclusion of numerous real cases, successfully illustrating how environmental, and climate due diligence is put into practice. Through this approach, Macchi effectively demonstrates the actual and ‘hard’ consequences of soft law instruments. Furthermore, the use of several current examples, particularly in legislative processes, is a significant advantage of the book, highlighting the topicality of the issue and providing helpful tools for advocating for environmental due diligence. However, this also means that the content may quickly become outdated. One area where the book falls short is its theoretical grounding. Despite consistently referencing the so-called ‘functionalist approach’ (p. 25), it adds little value to the already sound argumentation. To strengthen the theoretical underpinning the functionalist perspective should be applied in other parts of the book, beyond just chapter 2, to demonstrate its usefulness and applicability in the environmental due diligence debate. Macchi has skilfully provided an overview of the evolution of the business and human rights debate, which ultimately led to the adoption of the UNGPs. The UNGPs served as a catalyst (p. 155), not only for moving beyond voluntary approaches in corporate due diligence but also to include environmental and climate issues. The book has an introductory character that may remind readers of a textbook, as evidenced by its clear structure and the abstracts and keywords at the beginning of each part. As such, it is a valuable contribution to students and scholars of political science and law, as well as practitioners and policy makers seeking a comprehensive introduction to environmental due diligence. The thorough footnotes and precise citations are also noteworthy and appreciated by readers.