Browsing by Author "Juntunen, Pauliina"

A number of institutions, regulations, treaties, and courts impact how human and environmental rights are discussed, steered and enforced. The recent proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, published by the European Commission 23rd February 2022, is a potentially significant contribution to the directions these rights will take going forward. A particularly intriguing point about the directive is that it aims to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour in the whole supply chain, often having a global reach. This extends to non-EU companies who fall under the directive by meeting certain thresholds and conditions. The directive has an emphasis on the protection of human rights and the environment not only inside, but also outside, of the European Union. To realise the governance of corporate behaviour inside and outside the EU, cross-border considerations inevitably come to the forefront and with this, an old legal concept and doctrine – extraterritoriality. This paper examines to what extent one can detect extraterritoriality at work in different fields of law, most notably how the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice have applied this notion and ultimately, to what extent extraterritoriality could be applied to the Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence. Methodologically, the paper follows a legal policy research framework with regards to analysing different approaches to which the proposed directive could base its interpretation on extraterritoriality. In line with this approach, the paper will outline and analyse; the UN Guiding principles of the on Business and Human Rights; Professor Ruggie’s Report on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises; the European Convention on Human rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights; case law of the European Court of Justice on competition law; the European Commission’s decisions relating to mergers and finally, recent case law of the European Court of Justice where extraterritoriality has been explicitly mentioned. The above highlighted so as to discover the level of precedence for the way in which extraterritorial jurisdiction might be construed in the coming directive. The paper will conclude by suggesting in what ways the directive could gain in extraterritorial scope and application in order to foster the protection of human rights and the environment.