Human Rights Due Diligence: Views of the Process, From the Ground Up

ABSTRACT: Human rights due diligence (HRDD) laws have emerged as a vehicle for extending oversight within global supply chains, encumbering corporations with the responsibility for “knowing the chain” of business partners, regardless of where in the world production takes place. But there is comparably little analysis of the role that local level actors and communities play in the implementation of related obligations by businesses. Laws at the national level and the regional level lock in corporate responsibility with the aim of protecting individual and community stakeholders and their natural environment from harm, including the European Union Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). But stakeholders at the grassroots level are typically ignored or tokenized in the process, despite the centrality of their knowledge to HRDD. This article analyzes primary documents produced at the national level in multiple sites where HRDD is unfolding to reveal minimal specification of stakeholder engagement in laws and corporate compliance practices. This lack of clarity results in unequal bargaining power in the design and execution of remedies for harm. The power imbalance between corporations and stakeholders is thus not disrupted, despite the laudable aims of HRDD law. Addressing this imbalance is critical to improving the legitimacy and effectiveness of HRDD.