EU's human rights rule won't work unless companies can actually implement it
A new study of the EU's landmark corporate due diligence directive finds that transparency requirements alone won't force better behavior—companies need clear reporting standards, working accountability systems, and meaningful stakeholder input. Without these conditions, the regulation risks becoming compliance theater.
Originaltitel: Toward Transparent Global Governance? Human Rights Due Diligence in the European Union
ABSTRACT Transparency is a key concern in global governance scholarship, yet its contribution to good governance remains deeply ambivalent. Scholars are increasingly questioning the idea of transparency as a silver bullet, emphasizing the need to better understand its potential, pitfalls, and regulatory challenges. This article focuses on the field of business and human rights (BHR), and recent regulatory advancements in human rights due diligence (HRDD) in the European Union specifically, to examine the conditions under which transparency supports business responsibilities for human rights. Drawing on expert and policymaker interviews from the negotiations of the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, complemented by document analysis of related laws, policies, and research, the study identifies four interrelated dimensions that condition transparency as a regulatory pivot in HRDD: the design and audience of disclosure, the operationalization of reporting standards, the balance of accountability mechanisms, and the role of stakeholders and their modes of engagement. The analysis demonstrates that transparency operates within complex tensions—between capacity‐building and control, politics and law, and cooperation and contestation. By tracing how these tensions are addressed in EU‐level policymaking, the article advances understanding of how integrated communicative practices, clear and fair standard‐setting, accountability governance, and a culture of plural and deliberative stakeholder engagement can shape transparency as a means of good governance rather than an impediment to it. The findings extend beyond BHR to broader global governance debates on information disclosure, effectiveness, accountability, and democratization, while underscoring the need to recognize businesses as global governance actors.