Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Abstract
In February 2022, the European Commission proposed a far-reaching and comprehensive directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (the “Directive”). This Article describes the Directive, compares it to sustainability efforts in the US, and offers observations and critiques about both the Directive and US law. The comparison reveals several primary takeaways. First, likely owing to their significantly different social and political cultures, the EU Directive goes far beyond any US sustainability efforts. Second, and relatedly, the Directive is part of a rapidly progressing EU sustainability framework, which embraces sustainability as a stand-alone goal. In the US, however, considerations of sustainability are almost always framed within a financial paradigm, which distracts policy discussions and stalls regulatory efforts. Third, the Directive applies to companies based on size and industry. Enacting a rule with similar coverage would be difficult in the US because the corporate and securities laws on which sustainability obligations would most likely be based are jurisdictionally fragmented. Finally, in a departure from its usual hesitancy in the area, the US experimented with human-rights due diligence a decade ago, with the so-called conflict minerals rule. The rule failed for a range of reasons—political, structural, and regulatory—which still resonate and provide grounds for caution about the potential of the Directive to significantly improve human rights.
Recommended Citation
Schwartz, Jeff, "The Levers of Sustainability: The EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence in Comparison to US Law" (2023). Utah Law Faculty Scholarship. 401.
https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/401
Included in
Environmental Law Commons, Natural Resources Law Commons, Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law Commons