In September 2024, the Trans-Atlantic CT/BW HRRC, directed by Prof. Sebastian Wogenstein in German Studies and Prof. Shareen Hertel in Political Science, hosted an all-day workshop on the “Challenges of Corporate Sustainability and Due Diligence” in Berlin, Germany. Participants included representatives of German federal and state government, businesses, NGOs, and law firms
involved in related work, together with US and European academics from variety of disciplines.

We are sharing parts of the report below:

The convening took place at the Harnack Haus of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany, and followed the Chatham House Rules. This meant that representatives agreed to take part in an offthe-record exchange aimed at fostering robust dialogue and building a community of shared practice on these issues, partly in anticipation of a more public conference the Consortium will host at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies on broader human rights issue in June 2025: “Human Rights in the Balance: Safeguarding Social and Environmental Sustainability.”

Our aim at the Harnack Haus workshop was to explore how different parties have experienced the unfolding of a wave of new legal developments – including the emergence of the German Supply Chain Act, the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). We paid particular focus to the implications for human rights protection at the local level in global supply chains.

For a full report please visit this page. For more working group themes please visit this page.