International Community Law Review最新文献

This paper describes the international and European sustainable public procurement framework. It assesses the relevance of the sustainable solutions and describes how the rules and other legal practices promote green, social and economic goals in the public procurement field. The analysis shows that the outlines of the consolidation of sustainable public procurement, at juridic levels, are emerging in Court decisions and orders from regulatory bodies. The changes affect the whole system of public procurement including the policies, rules and practices which influence business strategies. The paper also provides an overview of the transformation introduced by the 2014 European Public Procurement Directives. It focusses on the instruments available to public buyers and public authorities in order to achieve the European strategic goals included in the 2030 Agenda. Their purchasing power should be used to procure goods and services that foster innovation, respect the environment and fight climate change while improving employment, public health and social conditions, the so-called strategic use of public procurement in response to new challenges. It also examines the rules and provisions to implement Green Public Procurement (GPP) and Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) existing at EU Member States level. Finally, the paper discusses the level of commitment, the business strategies in place to implement, monitor and review sustainable public procurement as well as showcases ongoing organisational good practices and innovative project.

The relationship between corporations and human rights has long been in the eye of international law. As the nature and reach of corporate actors make them impervious targets for domestic regulation, international law has become increasingly concerned with the adverse impact of business activities on human rights and the environment. This article critically examines the major existing international regulatory initiatives on business and human rights from the lens of public international law. First, we will explore the major challenges faced by international law in addressing corporate activities. Second, the core non-binding instruments adopted in the past decades will be examined, highlighting the progressive incorporation of some of their key standards in domestic legislation. Third, the increasingly relevant role of some of the business and human rights standards in domestic and international litigation will be examined. Fourth, we will look at the path towards a treaty on business and human rights. The argument will be made that although binding regulation is not a panacea for the multifaceted problem of corporate human rights liability it can provide a useful tool to harmonize domestic legislation and to give teeth to the existing non-binding instruments.

As a positive influence of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines, in the last years many multinational companies have adopted practices and standards of protection of human rights and the environment. However, these practices have proven to be insufficient when looking at the harmful events involving human rights and environmental resources, which seems even more problematic in the current context of sanitary and socioeconomic crisis derived from the covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, these past few years have also seen the adoption of legal provisions on non-financial communications of large enterprises, some sectorial regulations at the EU level and national laws on human rights and environmental due diligence duties, which could help to overcome the situation described above. This article aims at analysing whether and how, in the current and future legal framework, contractual instruments can contribute to the goal of human rights and environmental protection as regards business activities and how important their role can be in terms of sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

This article considers the case for compulsory corporate human rights and environmental insurance. It approaches it within the context of the need for more effective, efficient and just systems of redress for the victims of human rights and environmental harm that is caused by companies where they have operations or supply chains in single or multiple jurisdictions. Developments within the field of corporate responsibility for human rights and environmental issues have led to a variety of different initiatives that range from the UN ‘protect, respect, and remedy’ framework and the associated human rights due diligence (HRDD) framework, to specific legal developments in certain jurisdictions and other schemes developed by international organisations, as well as by civil-society and businesses themselves. From the perspective of corporate law, these changes have taken place within a legal framework that has certain features that have hindered the availability of remedies for victims of associated human rights and environmental harm. This article problematises the issue of redress for corporate human rights violations and environmental degradation within the context of international developments in this field. It considers whether there is a prima facie case for the establishment of a comprehensive compulsory human rights and environmental insurance regime for companies that would require them to operate to a high standard of care in their operations, and which would ultimately provide a more straightforward system of redress for victims.

In recent years, the European Union has done much to promote Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Through CSR, enterprises can contribute to the EU objectives of sustainable development and a competitive social market economy. For these purposes, the EU has used a smart mix of voluntary and mandatory actions. The paper provides an overview of these actions, starting from the 2001 Green Paper of the Commission. In particular, it will focus on the renewed EU strategy 2011–14 for CSR, which combines horizontal approaches to promote CSR with more specific strategies for individual sectors or policy areas. This document is a significant turning point because it offers a modern understanding of CSR as “the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society”. This new definition implies its possible configuration as a set of rules able to assume legal value and to produce legal effects. Thus, the paper analyzes the most significant actions and instruments adopted by the EU for the implementation of the 2011–14 strategy and the new notion of CSR. This analysis will make it possible to grasp the gradual evolution of the EU approach to CSR towards mandatory instruments, such as directives and regulations. In the most recent period, the EU approach seems more strongly oriented towards the adoption of mandatory due diligence legislation to enforce companies’ socially responsible behavior in the post-Covid context. In conclusion, the paper addresses the role played by the EU in supporting and, where necessary, enforcing companies to conduct their business responsibly.