The NOVA BHRE Blog

In July of last year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, released his report ‘Corporate Power and Human Rights in Food Systems’. The report underscores a stark reality: “Corporate power in food systems is so concentrated that a relatively small group of people shape what is grown, how it is grown, labour conditions, prices and food choices in a way that serves the ultimate goal of profit maximization and not the public good” (A/80/213, 21 July 2025).

Due to the threat that the current triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss possesses to existence on Earth as we know it, humanity finds itself in desperate need for a way out. Indeed, as of today, seven out of ten planetary boundaries have been breached, meaning that such disruptions risk triggering a cascade effect on Earth systems that may lead to irreversible changes.

The Fundão dam collapse litigation marks a turning point in transnational corporate accountability, as the English courts asserted jurisdiction and applied Brazilian environmental law to hold BHP potentially liable as a parent company. By finding that BHP exercised significant control, oversight and economic involvement in Samarco’s operations, the Court rejected the portrayal of the company as a merely passive investor and pierced the protective logic of corporate separateness by qualifying BHP as a “polluter” subject to strict liability.

The decision establishes a precedent for looking beyond formal corporate structures where serious environmental harm is foreseeable and inadequately managed, thereby lowering both jurisdictional and doctrinal barriers to cross-border litigation. More broadly, it stands as a landmark judgment that signals multinational enterprises may be held accountable in their home forums for environmental and human rights harms arising abroad, reinforcing the need to act with genuine corporate responsibility and robust due diligence in their global operations.

A adoção da Diretiva Europeia sobre Dever de Diligência em Sustentabilidade Corporativa (CSDDD) representou um passo importante na regulação da conduta empresarial em matéria de direitos humanos e meio ambiente. No entanto, menos de dois anos após a sua adoção, a diretiva foi profundamente alterada no âmbito do pacote de simplificação legislativa conhecido como Omnibus I.
Analisando a conjuntura atual e oferecendo um balanço crítico, neste blogpost Gabriel Araujo discute as principais mudanças resultantes do acordo entre o Parlamento Europeu e o Conselho: a redução significativa do escopo de aplicação da CSDDD, a supressão da obrigação de adoção de planos de transição climática e a eliminação de um regime europeu harmonizado de responsabilidade civil, bem como suas implicações para a coerência e a ambição da política europeia de sustentabilidade corporativa.