Louise Weiss
When you hear the name 'Louise Weiss', you may think of the European Parliament building in Strasbourg that bears her name, or of her election to the first European Parliament and her inaugural speech. What may not come to mind is the woman Louise Weiss herself and the outstanding achievements throughout her life. This brief profile is a reminder that she should be remembered for her tireless search for peace, her tireless fight for women's rights, her endless humanitarian work and for being truly 'European'.
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Dividing the Indivisible
The absence of a number of important human rights instruments from the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, notably for indigenous peoples’ and migrants’ rights, are serious omissions and must be rectified at the EU level during the first review of the directive. Given the status of the CSDDD as a directive, Member States also have the freedom to add these missing instruments during national transposition and should do so in order to further honour their commitments under the UNGPs.
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National Human Rights Institutions – Critical but, Overlooked Actors
National Human Rights Institutions are a critical but often overlooked actor in the context of the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. As we enter the transposition and implementation phases, National Human Rights Institutions can leverage their unique mandate as human rights experts in their jurisdictions to act collectively and individually to ensure that transposition laws meet human rights standards for an effective implementation.
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Conditions of Corporate Civil Liability in the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
The civil liability provision of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in Article 29 has been highly debated during the entire drafting and negotiation process of the Directive, but it held on. Where harm occurs, will Article 29 CSDDD fulfill its function to provide a right to remedy for the affected individuals and legal clarity for the companies at the same time?
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Harmonization Pains but Stakeholders’ Gain
The Article 13 EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is home of the meaningful engagement provision. It is significantly more robust than similar provisions in national due diligence legislation in France, Germany and Norway. Despite the fact that a number of differences between EU CSDDD and these national laws is likely to give rise to some “harmonization pains”, one silver lining exists: stakeholders gain some leverage.
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Unboxing the New EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
There is a lot to unpack in the now final text of the Directive. The German Institute for Human Rights offers initial analysis in this blog symposium, which starts with this contribution. The contributions engage with the final text of the Directive and give some initial guidance for interpretation and transposition requirements. Topics covered include a critical reflection on the neo-colonial context of the the law-making process, access to justice and administrative supervision measures for rightsholders, the scope of human and environmental rights that are covered by the Directive as well as the transposition phase with comparative analysis in the context of existing national due diligence legislation, its extraterritorial reach and the involvement of National Human Rights Institutions.
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Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz
Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz was an acknowledged scientist, a women’s rights activist, a politician, and a diplomat. Mostly known for being one of four women to sign the United Nations Charter in 1945 and assuring the inclusion of the rights of women in its preamble, she also played a vital role in attaining women’s suffrage in Brazil.
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The Spanish Amnesty, the Conflict with Catalonia, and the Rule of Law
The Spanish amnesty for the Catalan independence movement is a victory for the rule of law, rather than a defeat. It is not an exemption from punishment otherwise due, but instead a reflection of the fact that the acts now amnestied should never have been subject to criminal prosecution in the first place. It is thus also a way for Spain to return to compliance with its obligations under European and international human rights law.
Continue reading >>The Long Overdue Fall of Al-Kateb
On the 8th of November, the High Court of Australia delivered a landmark ruling that the indefinite detention regime under the Migration Act is unconstitutional, overruling the 2004 decision of Al-Kateb. The decision, both in form and substance, sent shockwaves through Australia’s legal and political establishment. In adopting the relatively uncommon procedure of issuing orders immediately following the hearing (with reasons to follow), a gap was created where politicians rushed to come up with a legislative response in the absence of any clearly articulated constitutional rules. In an island country, where several elections in the last 20 years have been ostensibly won and lost over concerns of ‘illegal’ immigration, this decision has been political dynamite.
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