The “hardening” of legal norms on business and human rights continued their long-term accretion in 2021, through judicial, legislative and administrative enforcement. Dutch courts ordered Shell to take far-reaching environmental actions company-wide, and positive action in an individual case. Three European nations passed laws requiring all companies above a certain size to carry out human rights due diligence, as the EU considered similar legislation.
In the UK, jurisprudence on the liability of parent companies in tort for alleged human rights and environmental harms was consolidated and extended to encompass harms occurring in a company’s value chain.
