 At this point, what we'll do is take about a 45-minute session to introduce you to some of our research coordinators in the Human Rights and Business Project. I'll introduce them to you in turn now. They'll each speak and try to give a sort of concise view of the deliverables key findings of each section of the report and also to explain the content of the handbook. So to tell you who is with us here today, we have with us Daniel Ogdenstein, start in the list of the program. He's an associate professor in the Department of European and International Public Law at Tilburg Law School. His research focuses on the legal and policy framework governing the relationship between global business entities and international human rights protection. Daniel has published widely on issues relating to business and human rights and has substantial experience with engaging in multi-stakeholder processes involving enterprises, human rights defenders, trade unions, and other stakeholders. Elizabeth Enneking, who's with us today as well, is an assistant professor at UCONN, the Outrek Center for Accountability and Liability Law of Outrek University. The focus of her research has been on the contemporary socio-legal trend towards foreign direct liability claims, transnational civil liability claims brought before Western society courts against multinational corporations, excuse me, for the detrimental impacts of their activities on people and planet in developing host countries. Over the past several years, she has published a variety of articles in international and Dutch referee journals, as well as two books on this topical subject. Case Van Dam is a law professor, consultant, and arbitrator. He is an expert in human rights, victims' rights, tort law, and consumer rights. He is professor of international business and human rights at the Rotterdam School of Management at Rezmus University, teaches as a visiting professor English and comparative tort law at King's College London, and is an honorary professor of European private law at Utrecht University. Julia Planitzer is a fellow of the doctoral college, Empowerment through Human Rights, of the University of Vienna. Her specialization is in environmental law, European law, and international law. Previously, Julia worked as the Deputy Human Rights Coordinator at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Affairs and Consumer Protection. Currently, she works as a legal researcher at Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights. Jordi Hadiaimansano is a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Vienna and Wigili in Taragona, Catalonia, Spain. He is a member of the Board of the Taragona Center for Environmental Law Studies, SIDAT, executive editor of the Catalan Journal of Environmental Law, visiting researcher in the Institut du Fédéralisme of the University de Freiburg in Switzerland. And Maria Alva de Tornay is a lecturer in private international law at the University of Barcelona and former guest lecturer specializing in private international law at Humboldt University in Berlin. She has participated in various research projects and has taken part in international conferences. In this context, she has a number of research, stays abroad, her publications have mainly explored private international law trends in the EU, main areas of interest are international law, succession and family law, and international tort law, especially focusing on EU international law in cases of civil actions for human rights violations committed by corporations. So each intern will approach, share your results, and with the time remaining, we would like to welcome you to hear your questions. So we'll begin with Elizabeth Moore. Thank you very much for the introduction. Welcome, everyone. Since I'm the first speaker today, we have been allotted a very small window of time. But since I'm the first speaker today of this panel, I will take the liberty of giving you a little bit of a background into our research, into barriers in EU member states to access to justice for victims of business-related human rights abuses. And if you ask me, an important element to this background is the contemporary trend in Western societies around the world towards foreign direct liability cases. Foreign direct liability cases basically are transnational civil liability claims brought against Western society-based multinational corporations before courts in their home countries in relation to harm caused to people in the planet in developing host countries as a result of business operations carried out there. Those operations are often carried out by locally incorporated subsidiaries or business partners. But in these cases, it is the Western society-based parent companies that are confronted with these claims, sometimes together with those subsidiaries or business partners. And the trend towards this type of litigation, as with many trends in the field of civil liability, originated in the United States in the mid-1990s. And to date, we've seen over 150 claims having been brought in the US against a wide range of multinational corporations, also a number of European-based multinational corporations that were doing business in the US at the time of their alleged transgressions. But the trend towards this type of litigation has not remained confined to the US. It is spread to other Western societies, including EU member states like Belgium, the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Sweden. And especially in recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the possibilities of holding EU-based multinationals liable before EU member state courts for the detrimental impacts of their activities on people on the planet in host countries. The most popular basis for these foreign direct liability claims are general rules of non-contractual liability law or tort law, in particular the tort of negligence. And the cases are typically constructed as claims relating to a violation of a duty of care owed by the home country-based parent company towards workers, neighbors, or communities in the host country that were at risk of sustaining harm as a result of the operations carried out locally by a subsidiary or a business partner. More recent claims have also targeted other types of internationally operating business enterprises, like EU-based clothing retailers in relation to harm caused to workers employed by their local subcontractors in their supply chains. And these foreign direct liability cases typically originate in developing host countries where legal standards relating to the protection of human rights, the environment, health and safety, and labor circumstances are not very strict or not very strictly enforced. And thus host country citizens suffering harm as a result of the activities of internationally operating business enterprises turn to courts in the Western society home countries of those business enterprises in order to basically obtain a more adequate level of protection of their people and planet-related interests. And what also plays a very important role in these cases is that legal procedures before local courts in the host countries are often problematic. Typical reasons for this may be that the local judiciary is not independent, that there is a fear of persecution locally, that local individuals or communities that are involved may face discrimination. Another reason that the host country legal system may not be equipped to effectively deal with complex legal claims like these or that there may be difficulties when it comes to the enforcement of a local court verdict. So how many European cases are we talking about? Together with a team of researchers, yeah, I hope you can see it in the back as well, together with a team of researchers, I recently completed an extensive study for the Dutch government into the duties of care of Dutch business enterprises with respect to international corporate social responsibility. And this study also involved a legal comparison. And as part of the study, we looked at relevant cases in the Netherlands and five surrounding countries, Belgium, Germany, France, the UK and Switzerland. And in doing so, in looking and searching for these cases, I must say here that we took a broad definition. Looking, meaning that for this table, we looked for relevant case law in the fields of civil law, criminal law and corporate law. How corporate law think of piercing the corporate veil as Professor Van Calster just mentioned. Cases in these three fields that were brought in these six countries since the 1990s. And we were able to trace at least some 35 cases that have been brought in these six countries so far, 35. Most of which have been or are being pursued in the UK or in France. At least 12 of these cases are still ongoing. And to date, we have seen in nine of these cases, we have seen that have been concluded through out of court settlements. In only three of these 35 cases that we were able to identify, did it actually come to a court verdict on the merits in which the corporate defendants were either ordered to pay compensation to the plaintiffs or were convicted of a crime. And I'll just briefly mention these three cases. This is the Dutch Shell Nigeria case brought by Nigerian farmers and in Dutch NGO against Shell in relation to oil spills in the Niger Delta. There was a French case against a Komi log relating to this missile of workers some 20 years ago. And there is the Dutch criminal case against Trafigura that Professor Van Calster also mentioned which related to the Probo Koala toxic waste dumping incident in the Ivory Coast. So three cases in which it actually came to a court verdict on the merits. Most of the other cases in total, at least 11, were dismissed at an early stage in the proceedings. And this suggests, these numbers suggest that although the numbers of foreign drug liability claims before European courts are rising, we are still far from offering effective access to remedy for host country citizens suffering harm as a result of the operations of EU based internationally operating business enterprises. Now going back to those foreign drug liability claims that I was just talking about, the ones that are being pursued on the basis of tort law, which is the majority, that's the default option in most countries to pursue these cases on the basis of tort law. We see that the feasibility of successfully pursuing these cases is mainly determined by four factors. Jurisdiction, whether the court sees of the matter has jurisdiction to hear the case. And this matter is determined partly as we will hear just now by EU law and partly by domestic rules on international jurisdiction of the country where the claim is brought. Second factor, applicable law. Which system of tort law is applied when adjudicating the claim? And this matter is determined largely by EU law, at least where it comes to claims relating to harmful events taking place after the 11th of January, 2009. In case of claims relating to harmful events taking place before that date, the issue of applicable law is determined by domestic rules on applicable law of the country where the claim is brought. Third factor, requirements for liability. What are the requirements for liability? According to the system of tort law that is applied in adjudicating the claim. And Professor Van Calster already very rightfully so mentioned how that can make a huge difference in these cases, which set of rules of tort law is being applied to the claim. And then the fourth and perhaps most important factor in determining the feasibility of these claims are the procedural rules and practical circumstances of the foreign country. And these are, this matter is determined by domestic rules on civil procedure of the country where the claim is brought. In my report, and due to time I will be very brief on this and you will be able to read all of this in the report and also in the executive summary. I dealt with the second and the fourth of these factors. So applicable law and procedural rules, practical circumstances. Very briefly, in the matter of applicable law in cases relating to harmful events taking place after the 11th of January, 2009 is determined by the rules of the Rome II regulation. And on the basis of this regulation's main rule, the law to be applied to a tort claim with international elements as is the case in all of these cases, is the law of the country where the damage occurred. So in foreign drug liability cases that would also, there would always be the law of the host country. So that means that the tort law system of the home country, of any EU member state home country of the multinationals involved, typically does not play a role in these cases. And as Professor Van Calster already pointed out, this may be detrimental to the plaintiffs. Especially in those cases where application of home country tort law would entail the application of relevant precedence in issues like parent company liability, on issues like parent company liability, where it might entail stricter rules on liability, higher level of damages, broader possibilities to shift the burden of proof, et cetera, et cetera. So in those cases, the plaintiffs would, in most cases, not be able to use had the home country system of tort law even if it would be better for their case, basically. There are some exceptions to the Rome II regulations general rule that may, in specific cases, lead to the applicability of home country rules and standards. And I'll be very brief on this, I'll just mention them. If you want to know more, please read the executive summary and the report. The most relevant of these exceptions are the special rule on environmental damage, the rule on overriding mandatory provisions, the rule on rules of safety and conduct, and the public policy exception. And please, if there's time and you want to ask more about one of these rules, please do so. But to what extent these four exceptions that I just mentioned may actually lead to applicability of home country tort law in current and in future foreign direct liability cases remains to be seen as there is no case law yet on the matter, so we actually have no idea. And in the cases that we have seen, for instance, the Dutch Shell Nigeria case that have reached, had that have come to the stage of a verdict on the merits, all of those cases, it was always host country tort law that was being applied. Now for the matter of procedural rules and practical circumstances, so like I said, that is determined by domestic rules on civil procedure of the foreign country, so the country where the claim is brought. And it is this factor that in foreign direct liability cases, in my opinion, generally poses the most serious barriers. As in many EU member states, the costs of litigating are very high. Access to evidence that is not in the hands of the plaintiffs is very restricted and the possibilities of pursuing collective actions are still very limited. And this general picture is corroborated by the results of our comparative legal study for the Dutch government that I just mentioned. How it showed that in each of the six countries studied, with the exception of the UK, I must say, one or more of these factors were likely to make it very, very difficult for victims of corporate human rights abuses to pursue foreign direct liability claims in those countries. So to finish off very briefly, I will just briefly mention the recommendations that I put forward in my report. And I must be honest and say it's not rocket science, but it's also because we are still learning a lot about these cases. We've seen 35 cases so far. The expectation is that we'll see many more following, but there's still a lot that we don't know. As for applicable law, I think it will be very important to monitor future case law by European Court of Justice on relevant rules of the Rome II regulation that may lead to the applicability in exceptional cases of home country tort law. And I just mentioned those four exceptions. I think it will be very interesting to see future case law on these rules. What we will have to do when monitoring this is we will have to make sure that action is taken where necessary to prevent Rome, had the Rome II regulations provisions as they are now and as they may be explained by the European Court of Justice from hampering EU or EU member state policies on business and human rights. And like I just indicated, I do think there is a possibility that those rules may hamper those policies. What we might also want to do is consider the extension of the scope of the special rule on environmental damage that now features, that does feature in the Rome II regulation. So as to promote EU member state policies on business and human rights. And just a brief note about that, this special rule on environmental damage in particular cases gives the plaintiffs the choice of choosing applicability of home country or would might give the plaintiffs the choice of, sorry, the possibility of choosing home applicability of home country tort law instead of host country tort law. So that's an interesting rule. Most interesting about this rule is that it was written from the perspective of protection of the environment. So the question may be raised, why this particular rule? Why do we only look at protection of the environment? Why not include protection of human rights related interests? And I think this is something that we should have a good look at. Looking at the fourth factor, procedural rules and practical circumstances, what we must do is we must monitor strictly ongoing foreign direct liability cases and identify potential barriers that may lead to a denial of justice. We see more and more of these cases in more and more countries coming up in more and more countries. So we're learning basically each day about the reality of these barriers. What we must be very careful about is that we must also look at the absence of claims as a potential indication of barriers because in some cases claims don't even materialize because of these procedural rules and practical circumstances that make it impossible to even start to begin to bring a claim. So we must be very careful not to leave that out of the picture. And then of course, I think it is very important that action is taken at the level of the member state or at the EU level even to remove the barriers that we see and like I said from the previous study that we just concluded there are some real barriers and the Dutch government following up on our research has promised that they will be looking at some of the barriers that we found in Dutch law on access to evidence and Dutch law on collective action. I hope this will lead to better access to justice in the Netherlands for victims of corporate human rights abuse by Dutch multinationals but whether that will actually be the case remains to be seen, I'm guarded about this. So much for my brief overview. Thank you for your attention. Yes, so Lisbeth has thankfully done a great job in giving you the broad contours of our work as a whole, I would say, so I can confine myself to highlighting the recommendations we adopted or we suggested and explaining a bit why we did that also for the sake of time. So as one of the areas that Lisbeth mentioned that our part of the research focused on was the area of jurisdiction. Jurisdictional barriers for third country victims that tried to bring a case in the European Union Court. Now this area of law is governed by private international law and as a general rule what you require to bring a case is a sufficient nexus between that case and the state in which you want to bring it the forum state. Obviously that's too broad a rule to have real grips so you need to flesh it out which is done differently in different countries and it's done so for a variety of policy choices. You have to take into account the interests of the victim, the interests of the corporation, the interests of other states and so on. Now the area of private international laws of course much broader than just business and human rights. There are many cases that don't involve human rights claims and from a human rights perspective that can be problematic because after all there's something special about human rights. We think they're high priority norms, whatever you want to call it. So just have the same rules for a number of cases that arguably differ from each other might be problematic. So what we've done then in the first part of the report we've looked at international human rights law so the human rights law proper basically that imposes obligations on states and we've asked what is the relationship between that area of law and private international law that allocates jurisdiction between state courts? Basically international human rights law has its own rules of jurisdiction or its own way of allocating jurisdiction and here the idea is one of power, very crudely put. As soon as a state exercises power of an individual then it also incurs obligations to protect that right of the individual. Now how does that relate to people trying to access courts? Well there's some case law that suggests that as soon as an individual brings a claim under a recognized course of action in one of the EU member states then it comes under the control of that state through the court and the European Convention kicks in. Now that doesn't mean the European Convention on Human Rights. That does not mean that the European Convention gives the claimant a right to have his case heard. It does mean however that the courts deciding these cases under private international law have to pay due regard to the European Convention including the provisions on access to justice. If you wish it means that the rules of private international law should be interpreted in a human rights friendly way. Now and this is basically the essence of our first recommendation that state courts should have due regard to their obligations as organs of the state under the European Convention. Now turning to private international law itself in Europe this has been codified in the Brussels one regulation that basically states that you can sue a corporation at it's where this domiciled which is where it's incorporated where it has a central administration or it's principal place of business. Now why is that, does that create access to barriers for people trying to sue multinational corporations? Well because multinational corporations are as a matter of law separate legal entities. Now you will not have difficulties in general to establish a claim against the parent company that in our case will be domiciled in the European member state. But then you will run into difficulties in showing why that parent company should be in substantive law responsible for damages done by subsidiaries elsewhere. Which is why you may also want to sue the subsidiary and there the jurisdictional problems kick in namely that they will normally not be domiciled in the European member state. Now one way that has been tried to get over that problem is to argue that often subsidiaries are effectively controlled and administered from the seat of the parent. Which is then from within the European member state and you can therefore establish jurisdiction via the central place of administration. And here we have a second recommendation which is well it's often difficult to prove that this is the case for the victim. It's very difficult to prove and we've seen that in practical cases to prove that actually the subsidiary is centrally administered from the seat of the parent. And therefore we suggest that there should be a presumption of control that establishes a presumption that the subsidiary in the case at least of wholly owned or majority owned corporations is centrally administered for from the place from within the European member state. That's one way to facilitate access to justice for third country victims. Another way ideally as I said the problem is ideally you would want to sue the parent and the subsidiary together in the European court. And you will normally have jurisdiction over the parent company. Another way to get over the problem of sort of getting the subsidiary into the case is joining these cases together because they are closely connected and so it makes sense. That's the argument to have them heard by one court. And accordingly this is another recommendation. This is a possibility that exists in a variety of member states. And we suggest that courts should make active use of that possibility for various reasons including process efficiency. Now here there's another problem which is that the parent company will often object that it could not expect to be sued for something that the subsidiary has done or to be sued together with the subsidiary. So it's an argument of legal certainty. And there is in these cases then a question again of a question of burden of proof that comes down from jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. And here we suggest that it would, it should be on the defendant to prove so on the corporation that they could not expect to be sued for something together with the subsidiary for something that the subsidiary has done. Finally, what about cases where it is as a matter of fact as a matter of law impossible for a victim to find any meaningful access to court anywhere, any access to justice. This is something that normally runs under the name of forum necessitatis. So if there is no other meaningful access to justice then you should as a court consider providing a forum for the case. Again, this is something that is possible in a variety of member states and in most cases it requires a sufficiently close nexus to the forum. And again, this is our last recommendation. We suggest that this is something that member states should make use of to facilitate access to justice for third country victims. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you Lisbeth and Daniel to make my time easier here not to have to explain the context of what we did in this project. Thank you, Katarina for introducing me and most of all for being our project manager. Where in the world would someone ever in public thank his or her project manager because those people are usually the most hated people in the world and you managed to be the most loved person in our whole team. So thank you very much for that. That was wonderful. And I hope to continue our cooperation of course. This part I've done with Philippe Grégoire and page moral pages also here. You will see her later today and hear her. Our task was in the framework of making it easier for victims to have access to justice. We made three proposals. One is disclosure obligations with respect to control of parent companies over their subsidiaries. The second, a rebuttable presumption of control over subsidiaries by parent companies. And the third one is statutory duty to conduct human rights due diligence. So the first ones are mainly at a procedural level by making it easier for victims who have to prove their case to get information about the way parent companies are having control over their subsidiaries. Some time ago I spoke to a senior legal counsel of a big Dutch multinational with a wonderful CSR policy and also wonderfully implemented in many ways. And I said, and he said that we do that throughout the company. So our subsidiaries, our suppliers all have to comply with our CSR policies. And even in joint ventures, 50, 50 joint ventures, we don't really have a say, but it still has to happen. And I said, what happens when you get a legal claim against you? He said, well, yeah, then we act differently. Then all registers go to legal. And then we argue that we don't have any say about our subsidiaries and no control over our suppliers. We owe that to our shareholders. So that's not corporate social responsibility, but corporate shareholder responsibility. And that's why it's important for victims to get access to information if they need to make their case against multinational companies. And our first scenario hopes to contribute to a better position for victims. Example, the victim in Nigeria suffers harm because of pollution caused by a Nigerian oil company. And the victim sues the European-based parent company. That's the Shell Nigeria case. The parent will argue that it doesn't have control over its subsidiaries and therefore do not owe a duty of care to the victim. But in fact, parents do have control. So our first scenario is to introduce a disclosure obligation for parent companies with respect to the control, the exercise over their subsidiaries. That is, in fact, an obligation that companies and generally parties to a procedure have in common law jurisdictions. That's a disclosure obligation. And our scenario applies to civil law jurisdictions. So that's mainly their continental European jurisdictions. And the idea is that the court, on the request of the victim, can order a parent company to disclose relevant information for assessing the parent company's duty of care. Regarding the control, it exercises over its subsidiaries and generally their involvement in the management of their subsidiaries. The second scenario is more or less linked to that. It's about a rebuttable presumption of control. So it aims to help solving the same problem as the first scenario, the victim's lack of information about control. And this scenario suggests to accept a prima facie evidence that companies exercise control over its subsidiaries. And in that situation, the court should shift the burden of proof to the company to prove that it did not exercise control. So the shift only concerns the control. It is not a full shift of the burden of proof with respect to the duty or the breach. And the court could use all kinds of existing mechanisms for that, to have this prima facie evidence. The interesting thing in tort law, the companies are fairly well protected in this respect. But in other areas of the law, like tax law, accountancy law, the law is looking through the whole enterprise and does not have this strict control issue. So it's also about aligning tort law with other areas of the law. The third scenario is about introducing a statutory duty for companies to conduct human rights due diligence. That is about the difficulty that victims have to establish a duty of care for parent companies. Also related to this control issue, but this goes a bit further. It's a more broader way to help victims. That's the third scenario. So we suggest to make human rights due diligence mandatory. Human rights due diligence is the cornerstone of the second pillar of the United Nations guiding principles, responsibility to respect. It is not a binding, legally binding obligation. And this scenario suggests to take that step of making it mandatory. And the company is then obliged to identify, prevent, mitigate and seize human rights violations for which the company is directly or indirectly responsible. So through its subsidiaries or suppliers. So the company in fact needs to act as a reasonably acting company and effectively carrying out human rights due diligence. Interestingly, you can enforce such a duty not only through private law means by litigating, by claims for damages, but you can also enforce that by ways of administrative law. Like in competition law is the normal way of dealing with this, by imposing fines on companies that do not comply with their obligations. So it doesn't necessarily have to lead to damages claims. So in that respect, that would not lead to a better access to justice for victims, but indirectly it might very well have that effect. Because in many jurisdictions, if you violate a statutory rule, then that also generally may be one of the instruments for the victim to base its claim on for damages. Just to finish off this third scenario, I spoke about this in May on our previous training session and then the first two developments already had taken place because this scenario coincides with recent developments in Europe. In France there is a bill pending in parliament on the duty of vigilance and there is a Swiss popular initiative on mandatory human rights due diligence, which will take place in one or two years' time. But since then, four months' time, we have seen a Dutch bill on the due diligence duty read child labour prevention. We have seen plans of the Dutch government to make industry sector governance flashing out human rights due diligence legally binding. We have seen the Italian draft of a recent plan very recently that considers introducing provisions such as the duty of care or due diligence for companies. And finally, we have seen representatives of eight national parliaments called upon the European Commission to consider legislation to implement human rights due diligence for European companies in the green card procedure. In other words, there is an ever stronger current in Europe towards the statutory duty to conduct human rights due diligence. And of course, sometimes it looks like we are watching grass growing, but if you look back four months, I've seen quite a bit of grass growing. Thank you very much. Okay, I have to manage my space here and then we can start. Thank you very much for the introduction, first of all. Now we're moving to the topic of non-judicial remedies. So we're moving from judicial remedies with all advantages and disadvantages in barriers we heard and what the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, the institute I'm working for, did within this project is to analyze the potential of non-judicial remedies. And we not only had the pleasure to work with Katarina as a project manager, but also as a contributor to our part. So we were really happy that we worked together in this area. Concerning the non-judicial remedies, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute worked together with Katarina and Pablo Ruiz, Pablo Ruiz who worked from the Quadracasa slow firm in Spain. Yeah. So we heard before that the judicial remedies have certain barriers, for instance, they are very costly. We don't have a lot of cases as we've seen so far. They take usually a very long time. The UN guiding principles on business and human rights, they also talk about non-judicial remedies. And we thought, well, we should have a look at them and see which potential they have and to which extent they're used at the moment in Europe. So non-judicial remedies are, well, it's a very broad term and it covers different forms such as mediation, sector-based initiatives such as the Fairware Foundation, state-based arbitration. We had a look at company-based grievance mechanisms and the example and the potential of the permanent court of arbitration. Concerning the company-based grievance mechanisms, we analyzed the mechanisms of two companies in Europe. One is based in Germany and one company is based in Norway. As we've seen today or we can see today is that there is not a lot of research currently concerning company-based grievance mechanisms. Research in this field currently lacks comprehensive data because we don't have a lot of information. And most companies, when they have a company-based grievance mechanism, only started maybe in the last three, four years with this procedure. So experiences are very young. Concerning the permanent court of arbitration, there are currently no regulations to be used for human rights abuses related to business. But the idea was to have a look at current rules and find out what the potential would be to establish rules and how the permanent court of arbitration could be an additional tool to find ways in non-judicial remedies. What we see is that there are barriers concerning judicial remedies and the idea is to establish non-judicial remedies as a complementary tool. So in order to make, for instance, access to compensation in a faster way, for instance. But at the same time, we have to see also that non-judicial remedies can also have some disadvantages or risks, for instance. So we have to make sure that there is, for instance, a confidential procedure so that there is no that victims don't have to fear from retaliation or that victims are not asked to waive their legal rights in front of courts, for instance. What we did in our assessments is to use the criteria which are mentioned in the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and they are listed here on the very, well in the last paragraph so it's a long list of criteria. We had a look at the non-judicial remedies we analyzed and tried to establish to which extent they are fulfilling this criteria. Just to mention a few, for instance, transparency means that the procedure for the victim has to be transparent so it has to be ensured when there is a case, for instance, within a company that victims know at which stage this procedure is now that they get enough information. Furthermore, the accessibility plays an important role. So which entry points are given within the company in order to make sure that victims even have the possibility to use these mechanisms. So is it an external actor, such as an NGO which, for instance, allows to receive complaints or is it an onboard person as in some companies or is it an internal complaint mechanism such as going to a superior for instance where you can lodge a complaint. So here you see a short overview of the two companies we analyzed and their company-based grievance mechanisms. So on the one hand it was Siemens Germany and the other company was Stathol in Norway. First of all, it was rather challenging to find companies having a complaint mechanism based in Europe. So we saw that there is a lot of research and information on US-based companies, for instance, but in Europe the number is rather small. But concerning the companies we analyzed now was, for instance, that both companies such as Siemens and Stathol they have very clear defined procedures on how to complain, for instance, how to lodge a complaint. The procedures are defined in Siemens, for instance, the user, here is the short is this IFA an international framework agreement which is an agreement between trade unions, the company and the workers' council which is explaining how to lodge a complaint and what the next steps are. The accessibility in both companies is that there are external and internal possibilities to lodge a complaint. So for instance, the companies have onwards persons or the possibility also to lodge a complaint anonymously on the website. And that's what we saw in Stathol, for instance, that they have so-called site-level agreements mechanisms. So they, for instance, before the country and then they did country site visits and engage with the stakeholders in the country in order to find out what the concerns might be and had then a local team engaging with stakeholders and this local team was also in charge then to work with the complaints coming up. So we saw in both companies that there is exchange between the company and trade unions or as in Stathol really in the case of with that with local communities. Concerning the company-based grievance mechanisms we saw that in Europe the number is very limited when it comes to fully developed company-based grievance mechanisms. They are not widely used so far and currently we saw cases used for labour law violations, minor violations and smaller scale conflicts with local communities. So we couldn't detect within the limits of this project cases with higher degrees or for instance more human rights violations involved. In both cases the complaints can be lodged internally and externally so confidentiality can be protected and we saw the exchange with external stakeholders such as NGOs and trade unions. During the permanent court of arbitration the idea was to find out whether the permanent court of arbitration could develop specific regulations for corporate-related human rights abuse and we saw that the permanent court of arbitration did that primarily also concerning for instance environmental issues or issues concerning natural resources and this was about how to define the rules within the permanent court of arbitration so to make them to make rules which are which can be used in human rights abuses related to corporations and the permanent court of arbitration would have certain advantages so it's very flexible you can have direct access to the company for instance but at the same time there is a certain financial burden which would need to be lowered for victims in order to make it attractive or as a usable tool for non-judicial remedies. So what we saw in general was to sum up this slide for instance is we need more information so we would need more information on how company-based criminal mechanisms are established in companies at the moment and how cases are dealt with currently so to which conclusions do these cases come to which form of compensation victims can really have access to and we also realized that for instance the guidance given from the UN based on the UN guiding principles in human rights would not be sufficient currently to clearly define how one of these company-based criminal mechanisms has to be set up so it's a very challenging task there are some criteria which are established but it's not clear how exactly this criminal mechanism should look like so it's challenging for several sites including the companies to find out what exactly does it have to fulfill so there are some certain mechanisms established be it supply chain management or compliance for instance or anti-corruption but really defining what means a corporate company-based criminal mechanism for human rights abuse is still vague and not clearly defined so for companies what we recommend is that really essential criteria of a company-based criminal mechanism would be for instance that independent entry channels are ensured so that it's really possible to file a complaint anonymously so that there is no fear of reprisal ideally an external stakeholder is taking care of complaints such as NGOs for instance that there is further exchange and cooperation with NGOs or trade unions and that the confidentiality is really ensured and that information about possible grievance mechanisms are really brought to the possible victims so maybe setting up a website might not be enough in order to really go through to potential victims yes for that presentation good morning I will join the panelist in thanking Katarina for this hard work keeping this project alive and well we have arrived to the end of the road and we are now presenting the results in our case Maria and me will present the handbook which is a very special result of the project and I will make a brief overview in the benefit of the type schedule we have on the purpose of the handbook and Maria Tikova on the contents and well this is conceived basically as a tool for for people helping the victims we are starting from the assumption that victims in these cases are very vulnerable and are also in a situation of somehow a lack of protection because of the shortcomings in a compliance and protecting their citizens of the states in the differences of global economy and this can make it visible to take some kind of procedure in the home country of the company causing the damage so given that this situation of vulnerability of the victims the handbook is not addressed directly to the victims but to the victims in their countries that means basically legal adversaries and civil society organizations and we have tried to present very briefly in a very graphical and simple manner the principal issues and hurdles for creation in the home country when a home country is a European one that presupposes a certain legal knowledge by the reader but not a concrete legal knowledge under European law so we are thinking above all for example lawyers situated in these countries which try to build a strategy to react against the damage and against the company to have some kind of compensation so this explain which is the purpose of the handbook and having into our view this kind of purpose we have designed the handbook in four languages there are four versions the hard copy version in English but there are also versions in Spanish in Portuguese and in French trying to keep informed this one could say first side advices in terms of building their strategy of course it is not intent to promote litigation but only to give information in order to design this strategy that means that in certain cases it would be a good way to get this compensation to have the case in the home country but in other cases there are alternative measures even legalizing the conflict trying to involve some kind of negotiation with the company so this is above all a complementary tool to help people in terms of having this compensation and designing this kind of strategy so I leave the floor to Maria to present briefly the contents of the handbook thank you so it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to address these words to you today thanks very much to the organizers and especially to our project manager as Jordi Haria has already told you our aim has been to shift the terms of the handbook towards a practical, helpful a clear guide this is why it describes it tries to describe the different legal strategies which are available in the member states of the European Union in case of human rights violations committed by corporations in this context the handbook provides the non-judicial remedies and also the judicial mechanisms trying to help identifying which could be the best solution, the best strategy in each particular case which is not easy we believe that the section containing the final recommendations when planning a strategy could be especially useful in this context sometimes it is advisable to bear in mind the advantages of using non-judicial remedies it has already been said alternative mechanisms like mediation instead of judicial proceedings on the other hand sometimes it has to be decided whether it is possible to file a civil claim on behalf of the member states of the European Union the main idea in the handbook is to find the most effective strategy the most effective solution in each case always evaluating the possibilities of success I would like to highlight that one of the most important objectives has been to track legal changes to clarify the complicated interaction between the different legal instruments for instance between international conventions and the different regulations of the European Union this is a really important and complicated issue for this purpose we have also made reference to recent real cases like the ones in the United Kingdom in the Netherlands or in Germany one important focus of the handbook is the allocation of international jurisdiction in cases of civil actions before the courts of member states of the European Union given that it's one of the biggest hurdles which victims have to face in these cases due to the big limitations of the first one recast regulation domestic laws on jurisdiction national laws have also been considered in the handbook there is a part dealing with comparative law because we think it's really important in practice the determination of applicable law is also analyzed with some particularities regarding specific cases for instance environmental damages other significant procedural issues dealing for instance with legal aid enforcement or taking of evidence have also received attention in the handbook class actions for instance too in this framework it is really important to take into account for instance that having a judicial jurisdiction does not guarantee immediate access for compensation I think it's really important to view this in mind we intend to offer a global comprehensive perspective for legal professionals in fact it turns out that there are many controversial points which are subject of an academic debate for instance we can mention here the effects of the relationship between the parent company and the subsidiaries on the allocation of international jurisdiction among others the possible amendment of the Rome II regulation could be considered for instance regarding the future inclusion of the violations of personality rights and its material scope planning proposals for improvements of European Union legislation regarding these cases can be made but this handbook is only about giving a comprehensive overview of the current available tools in this area our hope is that it really contributes to the correct planning of a strategy and in fact our hope is that it contributes to the effective protection of the victims thanks very much thank you for your presentations for your patience I know that we're running a bit over time we've already received some questions from social media I'm sure you all have some thoughts and questions and well what we'll do is reserve time at the end of the second panel so you can collect all your thoughts at the day and we can hopefully have a shared debate at that time so I'll break now for anything we'll start again at quarter past 11 thank you