Posted by Marcella Klinker
01.10.2020

Podcast: prospects for mandatory due diligence legislation in Germany and the EU

In this podcast, Ergon Director Steve Gibbons is joined by three experts in business and human rights – Margaret Wachenfeld, Laura Curtze and Claudia Müller-Hoff – to look at the possibilities for mandatory human rights due diligence legislation specifically in the context of the EU and Germany. We look at some of the crucial issues that will define legislation in Europe, ranging from scope to liability. We also look at the recently published proposal for an EU Directive from the Legal Committee of the European Parliament.

There is some way still to run with legislative proposals, but the developments at an EU and German level in the next six months may well shape the world of business and human rights more than at any period since the adoption of the UNGPs.

This is the first of a series of podcasts from Ergon, we hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

The contributors are:

  • Margaret Wachenfeld: an international lawyer and policy adviser on business and human rights
  • Laura Curtze: director of the German Global Compact Network’s programme on business and human rights
  • Claudia Müller-Hoff: Senior Legal Advisor on Business and Human Rights at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin

Their full biographies are here. The podcast is hosted by Steve Gibbons, founder director of Ergon and advisor to a range of companies on human rights due diligence issues.A full list of background reading materials including legal briefings, blogs and position papers is here. We will be updating this as the debate continues. Research and production support for the podcast was provided by Marcella Klinker.

Also supporting the podcast, you can read Aurélie Duchesne’s blogpost on lessons from the French duty of vigilance law, now three years old, for any forthcoming EU directive. The English version is here and in French here.