2023-09-26 11:00:11
LCompanies still have a few months to finalize their vigilance plan and make it public for the sixth year in a row. This unique exercise comes as a continuation of the adoption, on 1is June, by the European Parliament of a historic directive on the duty of vigilance.
The main change resulting from this is clear: the presumption of ignorance, which was, for the jurist, consubstantial with the autonomy of the legal person, disappears in favor of a presumption of knowledge, all the more difficult to combat as the companies affected by this « vigilance » must not only provide themselves with the means to control the conditions in which the goods and services that they place on the market are manufactured, but even more so they must make known the means implemented to establish this knowledge, of which they must also reveal the the most significant incidents.
Claiming, under these conditions, that the company was unaware of the human rights violations that may have affected the production cycle becomes a challenge in itself. Because one of the most significant upheavals of our time consists of the emergence of a new family of risks which is profoundly changing the grammar of business. Who would have believed, only fifteen years ago, that the offenses of genocide, torture, slavery would one day appear among the white collar crimes [crimes en col blanc] condemnable in industry or finance, that executives would have to answer for their commercial choices before the Crimes once morest Humanity division of the court?
A new branch of economic law
What the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 means goes well beyond the collapse of a factory building on workers enslaved by our frenzied consumption patterns. It also led to a collapse of law which allowed the world to understand that real fashion victims are the victims of a careless, disrespectful production that is now considered criminal.
The upcoming adoption of a European-inspired duty of vigilance will mark a step which reconciles the cause of human rights and that of businesses, now called upon “to identify, prevent, stop or mitigate the negative impact of their activities, including those of their business partners, on human rights and the environment”. Soon, international companies operating on European territory will also have to comply.
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