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 enacted in summer 2024. At the end of February 2025, however, the European Commission presented an OMNIBUS package proposing to postpone transposition, to substantially cut back the due diligence obligations, to delete large parts of the liability provisions foreseen in the Directive and to refer to the laws of the Member States instead. On 9 December 2025, Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement.
The project therefore launches a comparative analysis of the transpositions of the Directive into national law combined with an examination of the foundations for tort-based solutions and the conditions for attributing tortious liability to companies at the top of the supply chain. On the basis of the results reached for national law, it will then be analysed both from a legal and an economic perspective to what extent the 27 liability regimes differ and what this means for European supply chain liability. As the transposition deadline has been postponed until summer 2028, the analysis of the national law transpositions will only be possible after that date.
The project is led by Barbara C Steininger (ECTIL, ETL and University of Graz).