Did institutions in the European Union permit businesses to monitor children online, give abusers access to stalker software through partners or family members, or offer spyware to governments that violate human rights in order to prosecute those who violate the law?
The answers depend on how value chains may be defined by upcoming EU policy on commercial sustainability due diligence. The proposed legislation is currently going through the last round of trilogues with the German Council, Parliament, and Commission.
The value chain of a business includes more than just its output network. Additionally, it covers product creation, travel, logistics, marketing, sales, anticipated use and abuse, and disposal of end-of-life products. Policymakers would create a significant gap that restricts the scope of constitutional investigation using the law if they just defined “value chains” as simply the production of goods.
This is n’t just a theoretical discussion with no practical implications. Women, children, members of marginalized communities like Gay people, and political dissidents, for instance, will pay the price for risky technological loopholes that allow businesses to avoid attention.
Technology facilitates stalking and romantic partner or family crime, according to reports from Canada and Australia. Human rights violations are made possible by businesses that sell security technologies to autocratic governments. Children’s right and anticipated risks of online abuse and monitoring have not been protected by education technology companies that are creating and selling online education services.
According to The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ( UNGPs ), more people would be protected from harm if the proposed law adopted a broader perspective on value chains and mandated that businesses evaluate human rights risks across their operations. There is” no public information suggesting that human rights analyses are a regular part of due diligence during sales… [or ] that these evaluations continue throughout the life cycle of the product and any agreement for after-sales help,” according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression.
In order to encourage more businesses to implement the proposed EU legislation, it does give the UNGPs legitimate teeth. The proposed legislation should n’t be shaped by policymakers who give businesses a free license to develop and market risky technology without putting human rights protections in place. It would be a blow to corporate accountability as well as to children’s rights, gender righteousness, and rights defenders all over the world to ignore near individual rights harms like aiding in stalking, intimate partner violence, or other gender-based violence.
