20 Amendments of Jérôme RIVIÈRE related to 2020/2129(INL)
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that globalisation has created interdependencies between societies, where any product results from complex transnational supply and value chains and where decisions taken by European firms impact on peoples’ ability to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms worldwide; deplores the fact that globalisation has led to an increasing dependence of European economies, illustrated in particular, in light of the Covid-19 crisis, with regard to China, on medical and pharmaceutical products;
Amendment 35 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Stresses that the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) highlight the duty of states to protect against human rights abuses within their territories, jurisdictions, or both, by third parties, including businesses; further emphasises that, independently of the ability and willingness of states to fulfil their human rights obligations, businesses have the responsibility to respect human rights wherever they operate and to address adverse human rights impacts with which they are connected, including by enabling providing remedies to victims; notes, however, that in this area companies cannot take the place of the sovereign and regulatory powers of the Member States;
Amendment 59 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Deplores the fact that the economic model prioritises employees’ productivity over their mental and physical health; notes, for example, the number of premature births linked to the work of the mothers concerned;
Amendment 65 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Urges the Commission to propose UnionCalls for European companies to exercise mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation imposing legal obligations on Union companies and companies domiciled or operating in the Union in; calls on companies from EU Member States, in their recruitment, investment and supply policies, to put in place measures to encourage, in the first place, the use of maternial market and establishing effective monitoring, enforcement and remedy mechanismand human resources in their respective countries, and secondly those from EU Member States;
Amendment 76 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Recommends that due diligence as required by Union legislation be extended to all potential or actual adverse impacts which the company has or may have caused, contributed to or with which it may be directly linked; this extends to, but is not limited to, abuses across the entire value chain, including the parent undertaking, all subsidiaries, direct and indirect suppliers and subcontractors or other business partners;
Amendment 78 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 88 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Stresses that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and should be promoted and implemented in a fair and equitable manner; stresses that they are interlinked with citizens’ rights, refer to a state and are inseparable from each other; recommends that due diligence obligations should apply to all business- related human rights abuses;
Amendment 95 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Recommends that Union mandatCalls fory due diligence legislation be adopted to require companies to identify and address their impacts with reference to all internationally recognised human rights including, as a minimum, those encompassed by the UDHR, all nine core international human rights treaties, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and all fundamental ILO conventions, as well as the ECHR and ICESCR, which are binding on Council of Europe member states and also bind Member States as a result of Union law and the common constitutional traditions of the Member States; calls for due diligence with regard to embryo research; calls, in particular, for the creation of chimeric embryos to be firmly and definitively condemned;
Amendment 98 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
Amendment 100 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Notes that the human rights of groups at risk of vulnerability and marginalisation are disproportionately impacted by businesses’ activities; insists therefore that Union mandatory due diligence legislation should refer to group-specific instruments in defining the scope of corporate human rights due diligence; stresses, in this regard, that all rights guaranteed to those most severely affected groups under local, national or international law must be covered, as enshrined in Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
Amendment 104 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Recalls that the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights highlighted the differentiated and disproportionate impact of business activities on women and girls and has stated that human rights due diligence should cover both actual and potential impacts on women’s rights; notes with concern the higher unemployment rate among people with disabilities than among the population as a whole;
Amendment 106 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 20 a (new)
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20a. Notes a contradiction between the growing desire to include people with disabilities in our society and the profits made by European companies from the sale of the new non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for trisomy 21, which has the effect of increasing the number of abortions of children with trisomy 21;
Amendment 110 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
Amendment 124 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 25 a (new)
Paragraph 25 a (new)
25a. Recalls the precarious situation of elderly and dependent people, which has been highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic; calls on companies in the sector concerned to respect the dignity of human life; denounces the practice of stopping food and liquids for a dependent person in order to bring about his or her death;
Amendment 135 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Is of the view that businesses have a responsibility to ensure that their activities do not undermine or harm the protection of human and environmental rights; insists they must not promote, participate or in any manner contribute to, or endorse policies and activities, which can lead to human rights violations; underlines that businesses must do everything possible, within their capacities, to prevent and mitigate the effect of adverse impacts; deplores, in this connection, the fact that companies promote surrogacy even though the practice is prohibited in the majority of European countries;
Amendment 144 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Stresses that human rights impacts can be specific to certain rights holders and vulnerable groups due to intersecting factors such as gender, ethnicity, social and employment status, migrant or refugee status, exposure to conflict or violence or other factors; this must be reflected in the due diligence processes, including the human rights impact assessment phase and remedy procedures; stresses that, in accordance with the rights of persons, more specific and enhanced protection should be extended to certain categories of more vulnerable people, such as people with disabilities, the elderly and children;
Amendment 158 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 29 a (new)
Paragraph 29 a (new)
29a. Recalls that one of the first human rights is freedom of conscience; recalls that the right to conscientious objection must be protected, particularly in the area of health, and that no one may force an employee to act against his or her conscience;
Amendment 179 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Is of the view that transparency should not be corporate led but based on the right to know of those who are impacted by commercial activities, including workers, communities and consumers; suggests that stakeholders have a right to know such information in a comprehensive, timely and honest manner; believes that enforcing the right to be informed allows for the clear establishment of duties and duty bearers and rights and right-holders; calls, however, for the right to information to be exercised under strict conditions involving transparency on the part of the natural or legal person actually requesting the information; stresses a company’s right, as a matter of principle, to invoke business secrecy to oppose such requests;
Amendment 188 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
36. In this context, underlines the importance of the freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, as well as free, prior and informed consent by indigenous communities, while respecting the political and legal sovereignty of the states concerned;
Amendment 211 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 44
Paragraph 44
44. InsistStresses that, access to evidence and time limitations can be major pracs with any essentical and procedural barriers faced by victims of human rights abuses in third countries, obstructing their access to effective legal remedies; stresses that that the burden of proof should be shifted from the victims to the company and that the legislation must require companies to disclose all necessary information for interested parties to engage in judicial proceedings and for victims to access remediesrule of criminal procedure, the burden of proof must lie with the applicant, not the defendant;