Liability for Human Rights Violations and Environmental Damage in Supply Chains

European jurisdictions have witnessed approaches which apply tort law mechanisms to remedy human rights violations and environmental harm in global supply chains both on the legislative level (French Loi de vigilance, German Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz, Proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence) as well as in the court room. After several ups and downs in the legislative process, the Corporate Sustainability Directive was finally enacted in summer 2024.On the basis of this Directive , ECTIL intends to launch a broad project combining a basic analysis of the Directive and a thorough comparative examination of the Directive’s implementation into national law. The project is led by Barbara C Steininger (ECTIL, ETL and University of Graz) and will examine the fundamental questions concerning the foundation for tort-based solutions by focusing the comparative study on the conditions for attributing tortious liability to companies at the top of the supply chain. For this project, ECTIL will co-operate with ETL.