The European directive on ‘corporate sustainability due diligence’: the potential for social dialogue, workers’ information and participation rights

Abstract

The directive on “corporate due diligence for sustainability purposes”, approved on 24 May 2024, follows international attempts by some national legal systems to transfer due diligence to the level of hard law. The proposal obliges large companies to structure a risk management system against social and environmental externalities related to their activities along the entire global supply chain, requiring States to adopt monitoring and control mechanisms and a system of sanctions. To safeguard this process, the introduction of an obligation to involve a qualified list of stakeholders, including workers and their representatives, and an unprecedented civil liability of companies and directors are envisaged. Starting from these premises, the paper focuses first of all on the introduction of the civil liability regime for companies linked, among other things, to the failure to prepare such information and participatory protocols. The paper then analyses the critical issues and potential of the directive with particular reference to the prospects of a participatory governance of corporate risk and the role that, in its implementation, workers’ participation and social dialogue can assume. This is also in light of the progressive emergence of new collective rights, including those of self-employed workers and platform workers, provided for by the most recent initiatives of the European Commission.