The European Parliament has adopted new laws to rein in companies for human rights abuses in global supply chains. This will have far-reaching impacts on Switzerland’s largest companies. After years of debate, the European Parliament agreed this week to back two new laws that create obligations on companies to tackle human rights abuses in their supply chains. On April 23 the parliament gave the greenlight to rules that would ban products from EU export and import if they are made with forced labour. A day later, European parliamentarians adopted sweeping legislation requiring companies to not only identify human rights and environmental risks but to take measures to address them. If they fail to do so, they will be liable for damages in the EU. Both laws represent a shift away from regulators’ hands-off approach to corporate breaches of human rights in supply chains, says Nicolas Bueno, a professor of human rights law at UniDistance Suisse who has been following the EU process for ...
