As the European Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) comes into force, it is helping to usher in a new era of accountability for corporate involvement in human rights abuses throughout supply chains. Corporations throughout Europe and around the world that have long avoided human rights and environmental due diligence duties are preparing to comply with the due diligence requirements of the CSDDD.

In contrast, while the United States has led the way in holding corporations accountable for bribery and corruption around the world through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it has lagged behind in protecting global supply chains from U.S. corporations’ negative human rights and environmental impacts. With the current momentum around mandatory human rights & environmental due diligence legislation, the United States has an opportunity to re-establish itself as a leader in protecting people and the planet from corporate abuse.. By using the FCPA as a model, which has proved to be successful in significantly curbing bribery and corruption globally, the United States could ensure protections for people and the planet throughout the supply chains of U.S. companies and companies that trade on U.S. stock exchanges.

We lay out a more detailed argument for why the United States needs to adopt an FCPA for Human Rights in our policy brief “Building the U.S. Model for Corporate Accountability: A Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for Human Rights.”

You can read the full policy brief here.