Due Diligence: A taste of things to come

Amnesty’s new focus on multinational corporations highlights an “NGO mission creep” shift from its original aim of advocating for political prisoners. Its most recent report criticizes working conditions at Carrefour and Amazon.

The big picture: Companies may face increased pressure and scrutiny from NGOs and as regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive come into play, activist and politically motivated NGOs will have more data at their disposal to scrutinize multinational companies.

HRPG Europe take: The Amnesty targeting of Carrefour and Amazon is a harbinger of things to come when the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive sees the first tranche of undertakings in scope reporting in 2025. Amnesty and other NGOs will not have to go looking. Management will have to report on over 2,000 data points and post the information on its website. 

This report from NYU/Stern is worth reading. It “... assesses the rise and key tenets of business and human rights regulation and recommends to governments and companies how to maximize the effectiveness of these legislative initiatives. As much of the regulatory activity to date has occurred in Europe, this report also argues for enhanced US government engagement.” 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Amnesty on working condition in Carrefour in Saudi Arabia: here. 

Amnesty 2023 report about Amazon here.