Establishing foreign accountability through new due diligence regulations?: Part 1

Abstract

In October 2020, the European Parliament took an important step towards the adoption of mandatory due diligence policies of forest risk commodities, by voting in favor of a legislative initiative to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation. In addition, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice announced its plan to adopt a mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence regulation in the course of 2021. These developments reflect a broader trend in which states that are main importers of agro-commodities and raw material, for instance from Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia, have increasingly been debating and adopting new regulations of their supply chains. Scholars have argued that public policies for regulating global commodity chains could contribute to hold corporate actors accountable for their socio-environmental impacts in distant places. However, while previous research has advanced our understanding of accountability at the national level, and, more recently, in relation to private actors, we still need a better understanding of under what conditions foreign public accountability could be hardened. Drawing on conceptual and empirical contributions on foreign corporate accountability in the ambits of human rights and environmental protection, this panel explores the patterns, causes and consequences of new public policies to regulate global commodity chains. More specifically, the panel asks: (1) How can foreign corporate accountability be conceptualized? (2) How do key institutional design features differ between due diligence regulations and how to they shape their effectiveness? (3) Which other factors (e.g. state capacity, knowledge, actor constellations) make due diligence policies more or less effective and legitimate/democratic? (4) Under what conditions can foreign corporate accountability be further strengthened via collaboration with governments in in commodity-producing countries? In all, this panel invites scholars of human rights and of environmental governance to enter into a dialogue on the implications and challenges of the recent proliferation of public policies aiming to hold corporations accountable for their impacts in producing sites and along complex commodity chains.

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