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| Pix Credit: Bundestag verabschiedet das Lieferkettengesetz |
On Friday, June 11, 2021, the Bundestag adopted the Federal Government's draft law on corporate due diligence in supply chains (19/28649) as amended by the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs (19/30505). The aim is to better protect human rights and the environment in the global economy. In a roll-call vote, 412 MPs voted for the bill, 159 voted against and 59 abstained. The opinion of the Federal Council (19/29592), which raised no objections to the draft, was also available for voting. A resolution by the FDP parliamentary group (19/30547) did not find a majority with the AfD abstaining. [Der Bundestag hat am Freitag, 11. Juni 2021, den Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung über die unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten in Lieferketten (19/28649) in der vom Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales geänderten Fassung (19/30505) angenommen. Ziel ist es, Menschenrechte und Umwelt in der globalen Wirtschaft besser schützen. In namentlicher Abstimmung votierten 412 Abgeordnete für den Gesetzentwurf, 159 stimmten dagegen, 59 enthielten sich. Zur Abstimmung lag auch die Stellungnahme des Bundesrates (19/29592) vor, der keine Einwände gegen den Entwurf erhob. Keine Mehrheit fand bei Enthaltung der AfD ein Entschließungsantrag der FDP-Fraktion (19/30547).]
According to the will of the government, the responsibility of the companies should in future extend to the entire supply chain, graded according to the possibilities of influence. The obligations are to be implemented by the companies in their own business area as well as towards their direct suppliers. Indirect suppliers should also be included as soon as the company receives “substantiated knowledge” of human rights violations at this level. [Die Verantwortung der Unternehmen soll sich nach dem Willen der Regierung künftig auf die gesamte Lieferkette erstrecken, abgestuft nach den Einflussmöglichkeiten. Die Pflichten sollen durch die Unternehmen in ihrem eigenen Geschäftsbereich sowie gegenüber ihren unmittelbaren Zulieferern umgesetzt werden. Mittelbare Zulieferer sollen ebenfalls einbezogen werden, sobald das Unternehmen von Menschenrechtsverletzungen auf dieser Ebene „substantiierte Kenntnis“ erhält.] (Bundestag verabschiedet das Lieferkettengesetz)
The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Law (GSCDDL) may be accessed HERE (it runs about 72 pages in German) as amended (HERE). It is far too early to say anything definitive about the measure. I offer just a few preliminary thoughts:
1. To the extent that the GSCDDL ties its provisions to the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and to its National Action Plan, an interesting alignment of international norms, national policy and law may be developed.
2. The extraterritorial application of GSCDDL is likely to be troublesome, especially for German operations in China, should Chinese authorities determine that either its provisions or their application violates the newly enacted "Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law of the People's Republic of China" [中华人民共和国反外国制裁法] (discussed HERE).
3. It will be interesting to see the extent to which blocking statutes are enacted. Those may be direct. More likely they may take the form of a refusal on national policy grounds to permit enforcement of any judgment under such an act by the courts of the blocking state.
4. To some extent the GSCDDL may represent the further bifurcation of a transnational law of responsible business conduct--one in which the legislating state retains its national and constitutional normative prerogatives respecting the conduct obligations of enterprises in the home state, but insisting that international law broadly applied might be hardened throughout enterprise supply chains outside of the territory of the home state. This would continue to deepen the divide between the project of the internationalization and legalization of the Corporate responsibility to Respect Human Rights Pillar of the UN Guiding Principles, on the one hand, and the protection of national sovereignty to resist and pick and choose among international obligations with the effect of law in the context of the State Duty to Protect Human Rights.
5. The GSCDDL itself contains enough ambiguity to keep the German courts, and global lawyers, busy for several years. That suggests that the battles over the scope and application of the concept of a legalized human rights due diligence will continue in the courts and in the strategic decisions of enterprises, and indirectly, the financial sector (to the dismay, of course, of the non governmental sector). Pay attention in that respect to the early writings of distinguished German academics as important sources of influence over the course of those events. In that cntext
6. More generally, and with respect to its implications for core movements in fundamental premises about governance:
(a) The GSCDDL appears as another step in the general trend within liberal democratic political orders to deepen the scope of the governmentalization of the private transnational sphere through multinational enterprises. This trend appears to be the answer to the initial challenge posed by John Ruggie as he sought to produce a framework for business and human rights--the core problem of governance gaps in a world legal order in which national law tends to be constrained by the territorial character of sovereign authority. Professor Ruggie proposed a markets driven answer in the form of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights operating in tandem with the formal and legal realm of state duty to protect human rights. States have found it easier to constitute the multinational enterprise as an extension of national territory--including by reason of control relations, all of those foreign legal persons resident or operating abroad.
(b) This process of governmentalization--of transforming the multinational enterprise from an economic organ to an organ through which state power may be applied directly--has a number of collateral effects. One of the most interesting is the acceleration in the transformation of the character of corporate or enterprise governance. Increasingly governmentalization, within a framework of risk version incentives wrapped around concepts like prevent-mitigate-remedy, appears to be changing the working style of multinational enterprises, so that they increasingly adopt the sensibilities and operating style of administrative agencies. MNEs increasingly might be understood by state actors to conveniently serve them as global administrative agencies (with functionally differentiated jurisdiction based on their supply chains) with human rights regulatory authority. That regulatory authoriyy may not be identical to the authority that might be exercised by public regulatory bodies, but the operation of the MNE as administrative agency remains the same, and in that sense extends and internationalizes the reach of host state administrative organs.
(c) These private economic actors now play a double role--they are the instruments of economic activity representing large amounts of aggregated productive forces--and at the same time they serve as the private sector administrative organ of the state that assumes oversight of the enterprise and can hold them accountable (through public elected and administrative bodies). The MNE then serves as the administrative regulator of a double delegation. The first is a delegation of regulatory responsibility for the state; the second is the normative regulatory objectives represented by international norms (that might or might not be incorporated into the domestic legal orders of the states asserting oversight power). The MNE is expected to use its private lawmaking authority (through contract and internal governance mechanisms) to harden internal norms, the success of which is to be a matter of accountability to a national organ asserting a domestic agenda through law.
(d) The consequences are already appearing. The first is regulatory and administrative competition. For every assertion of national legislative power there is the possibility of blocking legislation. These block then reproduce the sort of governance gaps which efforts like GSCDDL are meant to overcome. The second comes in the form of inconsistent or in the extreme incompatible administrative delegations. Germany, for example, is not the only state with ambitions in this regulatory arena, even within Europe. It is not clear, as well how the German measure will align with those of France and its Supply Chain Due Diligence Law, or for that matter the UK's Modern Slavery Act. Reaching father out along complex and interlinked supply chains, the laws of other jurisdictions will also become a factor (e.g. Australia's Modern Slavery Acts). Third, these inconsistencies add not merely to the regulatory burdens of MNEs (and strategic responses) but also enhance the sort of regulatory incoherence that was also one of the great challenges to be overcome through the vision represented by the UNGPs. Enterprises will be required not merely to interalize the regulatory burden of compliance (that is hardly new or unexpected), but also the positive obligations respecting the hardening of international soft law and its adminstraiton is now required. The result, of course, is to augment the incentives toward not just governmentalization but also toward the adoption of the institutional style and practices of an adminstrative agency in the enterprise's relationship to its economic activity. Certainly proponents of a thousand legislative flowers blooming take comfort in the expectation that variations will be minor and eventually there will be convergence. But these are the same hopes built on, for example, a studied ignoring of the muscular development of Marxist Leninist approaches to human rights based economic activity, or to the approach to human rights of developing states. Not everyone shares the same world view, expectations, and experiences of those brought up among the best that Berlin, Paris, or New York can offer those with means enough to enjoy them.
(e) One cannot leave this discussion without, again, underlining the normative obsolescence built into projects like the GSCDDL. It is no longer possible to continue to ignore, or worse, to silo human rights as something that is not also deeply integrated with issues of sustainability and climate change. Accountability for humam rights unconnected to the reciprocal relationships between human rights, sustainability and climate change, can contribute to a distortion of the comprehensive interconnection between these aspects of responsible business conduct.
7. The focus on triggering events and the need to consume and analyze vast amounts of data (the substantiated information requirements and its likely imposition of positive obligations to develop and manage global accountability systems) across states and regions will prove to be somewhat challenging in at least two respect. The first touches on the ability to use data in the face of national restrictions. Foremost among these restrictions are emerging tendencies to prevent the storage or transport of data across borders. Recent Chinese data protection legislation might in that case be extended to more aggressively prevent the inclusion of data form Chinese operations for the purpose of facilitating the requirements of German law. Other states may produce similar restrictions. The second touches on the development of objective standards and coordinated analytics that make make it possible to utilize the data analytics on which compliance is essential in ways that may be used to compare enterprises with each other and against any emerging legal standard. The legal standard against which liability is to be assessed also leaves something to be desired. The effect of the legislation, then, on better developing mechanisms of enterprise and governance trust (and to create a legal basis for presuming the human rights trustworthiness of complying enterprises) remains at best a work in progress, one that might still not be realized.
8. Lastly, the collateral effects of compliance with German law might also produce some interesting extraterritorial effects. This might be particularly the case with respect to the development of human rights trt law in the UK and Canada. It might also contribute to the transformaiton of the agency standards in those states that might make it easier to extend liability through a suply chain while avoiding (and ultimately making less relevant to jurisprudence) the traditional law of veil piercing. Thei remains to be seen, but a litigator in those jurisdictons might well be tempted to use the disclosures and presumptions of the erma (as wella s the French) Acts to advantage.The official discussion of the GSCDDL follows below in the orginal German and in a crude English translation. There is much to be gleaned from that excellent summary.
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Bundestag verabschiedet das Lieferkettengesetz
Der Bundestag hat am Freitag, 11. Juni 2021, den Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung über die unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten in Lieferketten (19/28649) in der vom Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales geänderten Fassung (19/30505) angenommen. Ziel ist es, Menschenrechte und Umwelt in der globalen Wirtschaft besser schützen. In namentlicher Abstimmung votierten 412 Abgeordnete für den Gesetzentwurf, 159 stimmten dagegen, 59 enthielten sich. Zur Abstimmung lag auch die Stellungnahme des Bundesrates (19/29592) vor, der keine Einwände gegen den Entwurf erhob. Keine Mehrheit fand bei Enthaltung der AfD ein Entschließungsantrag der FDP-Fraktion (19/30547).
Zuvor hatte der Bundestag in zweiter Beratung vier Änderungsanträge von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (19/30543, 19/30544, 19/30545, 19/30546) zum Regierungsentwurf abgelehnt. Bei den ersten drei Änderungsanträgen stimmte die Linksfraktion mit den Grünen dafür. Die übrigen Fraktionen lehnten die Änderungsanträge ab.
Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung
Wie die Bundesregierung schreibt, würden in Handel und der Produktion regelmäßig grundlegende Menschenrechte verletzt und die Umwelt zerstört. Mit dem „Gesetzentwurf über die unternehmerischen Sorgfaltspflichten in Lieferketten“ will sie deutsche Unternehmen deshalb verpflichten, ihrer globalen Verantwortung für die Achtung von Menschenrechten und Umweltstandards besser nachzukommen.
Die Verantwortung der Unternehmen soll sich nach dem Willen der Regierung künftig auf die gesamte Lieferkette erstrecken, abgestuft nach den Einflussmöglichkeiten. Die Pflichten sollen durch die Unternehmen in ihrem eigenen Geschäftsbereich sowie gegenüber ihren unmittelbaren Zulieferern umgesetzt werden. Mittelbare Zulieferer sollen ebenfalls einbezogen werden, sobald das Unternehmen von Menschenrechtsverletzungen auf dieser Ebene „substantiierte Kenntnis“ erhält.
Schutz vor Gesundheits- und Umweltgefahren
Das Gesetz soll auch konkretisieren, in welcher Form die Unternehmen ihre menschenrechtliche Sorgfaltspflicht erfüllen müssen. Diese beinhalte etwa die Analyse menschenrechtlicher Risiken, das Ergreifen von Präventions- und Abhilfemaßnahmen, die Schaffung von Beschwerdemöglichkeiten sowie die Pflicht zum Bericht über die Aktivitäten.
Auch der Umweltschutz ist im Entwurf des Gesetzes erfasst, soweit Umweltrisiken zu Menschenrechtsverletzungen führen können. Zudem ist geplant, umweltbezogene Pflichten zu etablieren, die sich aus zwei internationalen Abkommen zum Schutz vor den Gesundheits- und Umweltgefahren durch Quecksilber und langlebige organische Schadstoffe ergeben.
Änderungen im Sozialausschuss
Der Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales hatte zuvor noch Änderungen am Entwurf vorgenommen. So sollen nun auch ausländische Unternehmen mit Zweigniederlassung oder Tochterunternehmen in Deutschland einbezogen werden. In die Mitarbeiterzahl werden ins Ausland entsandte Beschäftigte mit einbezogen.
Klargestellt wurde auch, dass Unternehmen für Menschenrechtsverletzungen nicht über die bestehenden Regelungen hinaus zivilrechtlich zur Verantwortung gezogen werden können. Umweltschutzbelange wurden durch Aspekte zum Abfallhandel erweitert.
Anträge der AfD und der Linken abgelehnt
Jeweils mit den Stimmen aller übrigen Fraktionen lehnte der Bundestag zwei Anträge der AfD-Fraktion ab. Der erste trug den Titel „Lieferkettengesetz absagen – Deutsche Unternehmen schützen – Entwicklung durch Eigenverantwortung und Handel“ (19/26235), zu dem eine Beschlussempfehlung des Ausschusses für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung vorlag (19/28734). Der zweite Antrag der AfD mit dem Titel „Für eine Neuausrichtung der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit mit Afrika“ (19/30421) wurde direkt abgestimmt.
Den Antrag der Linken mit dem Titel „Sorgfaltspflichtengesetz grundlegend nachbessern – Menschenrechte in Lieferketten wirksam schützen“ (19/29279) lehnte der Bundestag gegen die Stimmen der Antragsteller bei Enthaltung der Grünen ab. Dazu lag eine Beschlussempfehlung des Ausschusses für Arbeit und Soziales vor (19/30505).
Erster Antrag der AfD
Die AfD-Fraktion wollte mit ihrem ersten abgelehnten Antrag (19/26235) ein nationales und europäisches Lieferkettengesetz verhindern und die deutsche bilaterale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit auf die wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit mit reformorientierten Entwicklungsländern fokussieren. Die Fraktion begründete ihre Initiative mit der Sorge, dass ein Lieferkettengesetz, welches vorsehe, dass in Deutschland ansässige Unternehmen, die selbst oder deren Zulieferer im Ausland produzieren, zukünftig mit ordnungs- und strafrechtlichen Sanktionen rechnen müssen, wenn sie oder ihre Zulieferer die Einhaltung menschenrechtlicher, sozialer und umweltbezogener Sorgfaltspflichten im Produktionsland nicht garantieren können, dem deutschen Wirtschaftsstandort erheblichen Schaden zufügen würde.
„Der lediglich nationale Gültigkeitsbereich eines solchen Gesetzes benachteiligt deutsche Unternehmen gegenüber konkurrierenden Unternehmen aus dem Ausland“, schrieb die AfD. Staatliche Verantwortung für die Setzung und Durchsetzung von Recht dürfe jedoch nicht von den jeweiligen Regierungen der Produktionsstaaten zu privaten deutschen Unternehmen verschoben werden. Prekäre Produktionsbedingungen könnten nur dann überwunden werden, wenn Regierungen einen insbesondere auch wirtschaftlichen Modernisierungs- und Reformkurs ansteuerten.
Zweiter Antrag der AfD
Die AfD rügte in ihrem zweiten abgelehnten Antrag (19/30421) das geplante Gesetz als den deutschen und partnerstaatlichen Wirtschaftsinteressen widersprechende Bestrebung. Das Lieferkettengesetz müsse gestoppt werden, so die Forderung der Fraktion.
Zugleich forderte die Fraktion eine Neuausrichtung der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit mit afrikanischen Partnerstaaten. So sollte etwa die Anzahl der afrikanischen Partnerstaaten der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit „interessensgerecht“ reduziert werden, hieß es. Insgesamt müsse der Fokus auf den deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sicherheitsinteressen liegen, so die Abgeordneten.
Antrag der Linken
Die Linke hatte in ihrem abgelehnten Antrag (19/29279) gefordert, das Lieferkettengesetz grundlegend nachzubessern. Nach Ansicht der Linken hat die Regierung die „historische Chance, Menschenrechte und Gerechtigkeit in der deutschen Wirtschaft wieder stärker zu verankern“, verpasst. Das Gesetz bleibe weit hinter den UNLP (Leitprinzipien für Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte der Vereinten Nationen) von 2011 zurück, betreffe nur 0,1 Prozent der Unternehmen und stärke die Rechte der Betroffenen kaum, kritisierte die Fraktion.
Sie verlangte deshalb von der Bundesregierung, einen neuen Entwurf vorzulegen, der alle Unternehmen, die mindestens 250 Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter beschäftigen, kleine und mittlere Unternehmen in Risikosektoren wie der Textil-, Lebensmittel-, und Automobilbranche sowie staatliche Unternehmen und die öffentliche Beschaffung umfasst.
Der Entwurf sollte sich ferner auf internationale Arbeits- und Sozialstandards beziehen, insbesondere auf die Kernarbeitsnormen der Internationalen Arbeitsorganisation (ILO) sowie das ILO-Abkommen 169 zur angemessenen Beteiligung indigener Völker und die ILO-Übereinkommen Nr. 177 über Heimarbeit und Nr. 190 über Gewalt und sexuelle Belästigung.
„Negative Auswirkungen verhüten“
Die Unternehmen sollten in Verhältnismäßigkeit zu ihrer Größe verpflichtet werden, entlang der gesamten Lieferkette ein Verfahren zur Gewährleistung der menschenrechtlichen und umweltbezogenen Sorgfaltspflicht einzuführen, das darauf abzielt, negative Auswirkungen auf die Menschenrechte und Umwelt zu ermitteln, zu verhüten und zu mildern sowie Rechenschaft darüber abzulegen, wie sie diesen begegnen.
Die Linke fordert eaußerdem, durch die Schaffung eines deliktischen Haftungsbestands die Zuständigkeit deutscher Gerichte zu erweitern, sodass bei Menschenrechtsverstößen im Ausland Klagen vor deutschen Gerichten zulässig sind. Kollektivklagen und Verbandsklagen vor deutschen Gerichten, die zu einer unmittelbaren Entschädigung der Betroffenen und Beendigung der Sorgfaltspflichtverletzung führen, sollten ermöglicht werden. (che/sas/ste/11.06.2021)
Bundestag passes the supply chain law
On Friday, June 11, 2021, the Bundestag adopted the Federal Government's draft law on corporate due diligence in supply chains (19/28649) as amended by the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs (19/30505). The aim is to better protect human rights and the environment in the global economy. In a roll-call vote, 412 MPs voted for the bill, 159 voted against and 59 abstained. The opinion of the Federal Council (19/29592), which raised no objections to the draft, was also available for voting. A resolution by the FDP parliamentary group (19/30547) did not find a majority with the AfD abstaining.
Previously, the Bundestag had rejected four amendments from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen (19/30543, 19/30544, 19/30545, 19/30546) to the government draft in a second discussion. The left-wing group with the Greens voted in favor of the first three amendments. The other groups rejected the amendments.
Bill of the federal government
As the federal government writes, fundamental human rights are regularly violated in trade and production and the environment is destroyed. With the “Draft Law on Corporate Due Diligence in Supply Chains”, it wants to oblige German companies to better meet their global responsibility for respecting human rights and environmental standards.
According to the will of the government, the responsibility of the companies should in future extend to the entire supply chain, graded according to the possibilities of influence. The obligations are to be implemented by the companies in their own business area as well as towards their direct suppliers. Indirect suppliers should also be included as soon as the company receives “substantiated knowledge” of human rights violations at this level.
Protection against health and environmental hazards
The law is also intended to specify the form in which companies must fulfill their human rights due diligence. This includes, for example, the analysis of human rights risks, the taking of preventive and remedial measures, the creation of complaints and the obligation to report on the activities.
Environmental protection is also included in the draft law, insofar as environmental risks can lead to human rights violations. In addition, there are plans to establish environmentally-related obligations resulting from two international agreements on protection against health and environmental hazards from mercury and persistent organic pollutants.
Changes in the social committee
The Labor and Social Affairs Committee had previously made changes to the draft. Foreign companies with branches or subsidiaries in Germany are now also to be included. Employees posted abroad are included in the number of employees.
It was also made clear that companies cannot be held responsible under civil law for human rights violations beyond the existing regulations. Environmental concerns were expanded to include aspects relating to waste trading.
Applications from the AfD and the Left rejected
With the votes of all other parliamentary groups, the Bundestag rejected two motions from the AfD parliamentary group. The first was entitled “Cancel the Supply Chain Act - Protect German Companies - Development through Personal Responsibility and Trade” (19/26235), on which a resolution recommendation by the Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development was available (19/28734). The second proposal by the AfD, entitled “For a realignment of development cooperation with Africa” (19/30421), was voted directly.
The Bundestag rejected the motion of the left entitled “Fundamentally improving the Due Diligence Act - effectively protecting human rights in supply chains” (19/29279) against the votes of the applicants, with the Greens abstaining. A recommendation for a resolution by the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs was available (19/30505).
First application by the AfD
With its first rejected application (19/26235), the AfD parliamentary group wanted to prevent a national and European supply chain law and focus German bilateral development cooperation on economic cooperation with reform-oriented developing countries. The parliamentary group justified its initiative with the concern that a supply chain law, which provides that companies based in Germany that produce themselves or their suppliers abroad, will in future have to reckon with regulatory and criminal sanctions if they or their suppliers comply with human rights, social and environmental due diligence in the country of production cannot guarantee the German business location considerable damage would practice.
"The purely national scope of such a law puts German companies at a disadvantage compared to competing companies from abroad," wrote the AfD. However, state responsibility for the establishment and enforcement of law should not be shifted from the respective governments of the production states to private German companies. Precarious production conditions could only be overcome if governments embarked on a particularly economic modernization and reform course.
Second application by the AfD
In its second rejected application (19/30421), the AfD criticized the planned law as an endeavor that contradicted German and partner-state economic interests. The supply chain law must be stopped, so the demand of the group.
At the same time, the group called for a realignment of development cooperation with African partner countries. For example, the number of African partner states in German development cooperation should be reduced “in line with interests”, it said. Overall, the focus must be on German economic and security interests, so the MPs.
Request from the left
In its rejected application (19/29279), the Left had called for the supply chain law to be fundamentally improved. According to the left, the government has missed the “historic opportunity to anchor human rights and justice more firmly in the German economy”. The law lags far behind the UNLP (Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights of the United Nations) of 2011, affects only 0.1 percent of companies and hardly strengthens the rights of those affected, criticized the group.
It therefore asked the federal government to submit a new draft that includes all companies that employ at least 250 people, small and medium-sized companies in risk sectors such as the textile, food and automotive sectors, as well as state-owned companies and public procurement.
The draft should also refer to international labor and social standards, in particular to the core labor standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO) as well as ILO Convention 169 on the appropriate participation of indigenous peoples and ILO Conventions No. 177 on homework and No. 190 on violence and sexual harassment.
"Prevent negative effects"
Companies should be required, in proportion to their size, to implement a human rights and environmental due diligence process along the entire supply chain that aims to identify, prevent and mitigate negative effects on human rights and the environment and to be accountable for how to deal with them.
The Left also demands that the jurisdiction of German courts be expanded through the creation of a criminal liability portfolio, so that lawsuits in German courts are permissible in the event of human rights violations abroad. Collective actions and representative actions before German courts that lead to immediate compensation for those affected and an end to the breach of duty of care should be made possible. (che / sas / ste / 11.06.2021)
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