Pillar I

Legal Obligations

Around the world, governments are turning voluntary “good practice” on human rights into legal obligations. These laws include: reporting requirements, building on the modern slavery reporting requirements of the prior decade; due diligence requirements, building on existing laws in France and Germany; and trade enforcement laws, such as forced labor import bans. They also aim to assure remedies for affected rightsholders. For more on remedy, see Pillar III. Additional laws require HRDD Reporting.

Nomogaia supports these efforts in two ways.

First, do research to support effective statutory language and regulatory actions that can govern each phase of due diligence, from risk mapping, to impact evaluation, to meaningful engagement with impacted rightsholders, to remediation and monitoring. Second, we publish freely available examples of human rights due diligence, which regulators can use as references to understand what is duly diligent and what is insufficient. These are available under Pillar II.

Regulating Human Rights Due Diligence

Companies are tasked to screen and “Scope” their human rights risks. Then they must conduct “In-Depth Assessment” where the in-scope risks require it. In-Depth Assessment will identify the remedial actions needed, partly through the implementation of “Meaningful Engagement” and effective “Grievance Mechanisms.” They are to be duly diligent across operations, portfolios and suppliers. Regulators require guidance to know how to evaluate whether company processes are ‘duly’ diligent. The oversight duty is significant.

Human Rights Due Diligence Oversight

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Disclosure of Real-World Impacts

Where risk profiles are elevated, regulators can require access to documentation that demonstrates how companies are evaluating their impacts on affected people. This is a significant gap in current corporate human rights reporting – regulators can address the systemic problem of companies linking risks to remedies without evaluating on-the-ground impacts and tailoring remedies to verified harms. Reporting requirements have been controversial, but they can be beneficial to everyone if they target reporting and tracking of actual impacts and remedies.

Human Rights Reporting Oversight

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Legal Obligations in Action

Around the world, voluntary “good practice” on human rights is becoming hard law. New due-diligence and transparency rules require companies to carry out Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) and “know and show” they are not profiting from abuse. NomoGaia supports regulators and companies with practical HRDD examples and draft regulatory language for every step of due diligence—from mapping risks and assessing impacts to engaging affected people and tracking remediation.