The potential role of mandatory human rights due diligence: a first step towards victims access to legal remedy in Europe

Abstract

Transnational Corporations operate in a borderless space using their supply chains. The countries of the Global South become their source of raw materials and places to outsource and relocate the different phases of the production process. This business strategy provides these large corporations with economic and fiscal advantages while ensuring impunity for possible legal claims for their direct or indirect participation in human, labor and environmental rights violations raised by workers and communities affected by their activities. Victims’ access to justice, recognized in the third pillar of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, continues to be, a decade after their adoption, a right that is difficult to achieve. This article analyzes, using a case study, Jabir et al. vs. Kik, the potential of mandatory human rights due diligence to help overcome the procedural and material obstacles faced by victims when they go to the European courts, invoking a non-contractual civil liability of the transnational company for the damages suffered as workers of its subsidiary, of your supplier or as communities affected by environmental pollution.