法律翻译 | 欧盟对可持续发展条约的不一致策略：尽职调查立法v. 贸易政策

Written by Marco Bronckers

作者：马可·布朗克斯（Marco Bronckers

In February 2022 the European Commission launched a proposal for an EU corporate sustainability due diligence directive (‘CSDDD proposal’). Companies will be mandated, under threat of sanctions, to monitor adverse impacts that may arise throughout their value chain from violations of a series of sustainability treaties: that is, treaties on human rights, labor and the environment. These treaties are listed in a comprehensive Annex. This due diligence obligation applies globally; no distinctions are made depending on the countries where the value chain operates.

2022年2月，欧盟委员会发布了关于《欧盟企业可持续发展尽职调查指令》（EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive，CSDDD）的提案（下称“CSDDD提案”）。面对制裁的威胁，企业将被要求监督违反可持续发展条约（即人权、劳工和环境条约）、在整个价值链中可能产生不利影响的行为，相关条约通过附件完整列举。这一尽职调查义务在全球范围内适用，不因价值链运作所在的国家产生区别。

A few months later, in June 2022, the European Commission came out with a policy paper on the Trade and Sustainable Development (‘TSD’) commitments which the EU will incorporate in its bilateral free trade agreements and which it would expect is trading partners to observe. The Commission positions these TSD commitments in trade policy amongst a wider group of instruments to support sustainable trade, such as its CSDDD proposal. However, the Commission glosses over important differences between these two initiatives, one of which relates to companies and the other applicable to other states.

（图片来源于网络）

2022年6月，欧盟委员会发布了一份关于贸易和可持续发展（Trade and Sustainable Development，TSD）承诺（下称“TSD承诺”）的政策文件，欧盟称将把这些承诺纳入其双边自由贸易协定，并希望贸易伙伴遵守。欧盟委员会将这些贸易政策中的TSD承诺置于更广泛的支持可持续性贸易的法律文书中，例如CSDDD提案。然而，欧盟委员会掩盖了这两项倡议之间的重要区别，其中一项（CSDDD提案）适用于企业，另一项（TSD承诺）适用于国家。

First, the EU’s trade agreements include a smaller set of sustainability treaties that it expects its trading partners to observe than the comprehensive list the Commission proposes in the CSDDD that companies must monitor throughout their value chain. Second, regarding the EU’s trade agreements, the Commission emphasizes its preference for a country-specific approach towards implementation of TSD commitments. Third, again regarding these trade agreements, the Commission wants to provide sanctions for violations of only a handful of sustainability treaties, and proposes to impose them only in case of serious violations. The handful of treaties being the Paris Climate Agreement, and the eight core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO). In October 2022 both the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, as well as the Foreign Affairs Council endorsed the Commission’s selective approach towards sustainability treaties, as well as its country-based prioritization.

首先，相较于欧盟委员会在CSDDD提案中要求企业在整个价值链中监督的全面清单，欧盟在其贸易协定中希望其贸易伙伴遵守的可持续发展条约数量较少。其次，对于欧盟的贸易协定，欧盟委员会强调，它倾向于采取具有国别性的方法来落实TSD承诺。最后，对于这些贸易协定，欧盟委员会希望对违反部分可持续发展条约的行为进行制裁，并提议仅在严重违反的情况下实施制裁。这部分条约包括《巴黎气候协定》和国际劳工组织（International Labor Organization，ILO）的八项核心公约。2022年10月，欧洲议会国际贸易委员会和外交事务理事会批准了委员会对可持续发展条约的选择性做法，以及具有国别差异的可持续条约处理方式。

In Oscar Wilde’s phrase: ‘consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.’  Yet the discrepancy between due diligence legislation and trade policy is striking. Why does the European Commission demand much more from business, with respect to the supervision of sustainability treaties, than it can or wants to do itself?

奥斯卡·王尔德说:“一致性是缺乏想象力的人最后的避难所。”然而，尽职调查立法与贸易政策之间的差异是如此的惊人。为什么欧盟委员会在监督可持续发展条约履行方面，对企业的要求比它自己能够或想要做的多得多?

To answer that question, a bit of history is illuminating. How did TSD commitments, with reference to sustainability treaties, become part of the EU’s bilateral trade agreements?

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There was no place for agreements on environment and labor in the WTO, a longtime EU wish. Then the EU switched to bilateral trade agreements. Since 2011, in an agreement with Korea, the EU began to dedicate separate chapters to sustainability in its trade agreements. This practice became anchored in a value-based trade policy in a Communication of 2015: no further, preferential trade liberalization would be envisaged toward trading partners that did not share Europe’s basic values on human rights, labor and the environment. The emphasis on values was supposed to help make trade liberalization, always a thorny issue, more politically acceptable.

虽然欧盟长期祈愿，但世贸组织协议中仍没有环境和劳工协议的一席之地。因此欧盟转向了双边贸易协定。从2011年起，在其与韩国的协议中，欧盟开始在其贸易协定中设置专门的可持续发展章节。这一做法在一份2015年的报告（Communication）中被认定为一种基于价值观的贸易政策：对那些在人权、劳工和环境方面不认同欧洲基本价值观的贸易伙伴，欧盟将不再延续优惠的贸易自由化政策。对价值观的强调被认为应当具有这样的功能，即有助于使贸易自由化这个棘手的问题在政治上更容易被接受。

That policy choice was certainly not uncontroversial. Economists and business feared that value-based trade policy would make the economic benefits of trade liberalization too dependent on political trade-offs. This may also explain why disputes over TSD commitments in the EU’s bilateral trade agreements were not subjected to regular dispute resolution.  

这一政策选择当然不是没有争议的。经济学家和商界担心，以价值观为基础的贸易政策会使贸易自由化下经济利益的产生过于依赖政治权衡。这也可以解释为什么欧盟双边贸易协定中关于TSD承诺的争端并没有使用常规的争端解决方式。

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The procedure usually followed in trade agreements is modeled on the innovations introduced in the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding in 1995. Consensus on the resolution of a dispute between the litigating governments is no longer required. A complaining government is entitled to submit a dispute to an independent panel of experts in a type of arbitration procedure. Their judgment is binding. If the losing party does not comply with the ruling, the successful complainant can impose trade restrictions as a countermeasure to force the loser to comply.

贸易协定中通常遵循的争端解决程序模仿了1995年WTO争端解决谅解（Dispute Settlement Understanding）中引入的创新，即不再需要争端方政府间就解决争端达成一致同意。提出申诉的政府有权通过某种仲裁程序将争端提交给一个独立的专家小组，他们的裁决是有约束力的。如果败诉方不遵守裁决，胜诉的一方可以采取贸易限制措施作为反制措施，迫使败诉方遵守裁决。

The dispute did go before an independent panel of experts. However, their ruling was not binding, and sometimes was not even published. That ruling was no more than a building block for the opposing parties to still reach agreement.

对于可持续发展的争端确实会被提交至一个独立专家小组。然而，他们的裁决没有约束力，有时甚至不会被公开。这一裁决不过是为争端方之间达成协议提供基础。

This ‘status aparte’ of TSD commitments in bilateral trade agreements was fiercely criticized by civil society, by the European Parliament, and by a group of academics (I was among that group of critics). To those criticisms, the Commission and its advocates had a series of, often technical, responses. One such response was that TSD commitments would be too ‘vague’ to be subject to strict enforcement and penalties.

这种双边贸易协定中TSD承诺的“区隔地位”遭到了民间社会、欧洲议会和一群学者的激烈批评（我就是批评者之一）。对于这些批评，欧盟委员会及其支持者做出了一系列通常是技术性的回应，其中一种回应是，TSD承诺过于“模糊”，无法进行严格的执行及适用惩罚。

Critics such as myself have always found that vagueness argument to be nonsensical. Surely it is not credible to dismiss all human rights, labour and environmental treaties as ‘vague’. Our answer was: the Commission must select and possibly specify which TSD commitments qualify for normal, binding dispute resolution with sanctions.

包括我在内的批评者认为，这种关于模糊性的论点毫无意义。把所有人权、劳工和环境条约都归为“模糊的”显然是不可信的。我们的回应是：欧盟委员会必须选择并尽可能具体地说明哪些TSD承诺满足通过制裁实现正常的、有约束力的争端解决的条件。

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After years of resistance, the Commission changed course in its policy paper of June 2022. Under its proposals, disputes over sustainability chapters in the EU’s trade agreements would henceforth be subject to normal dispute settlement procedures. But the Commission still maintained reservations. Sanctions for non-compliance with a binding ruling in sustainability disputes are only foreseen for serious violations of a handful of treaties: the Paris Climate Convention, and the basic ILO Conventions. The latter cover trade union freedom, prohibition of forced labor, the worst forms of child labor, and discrimination in working conditions. It should be noted that the proposal according to which violations must be serious before the EU considers sanctions for non-compliance with a ruling would create a threshold that applies only to sustainability disputes; this threshold does not apply to violations of trade regulation or intellectual property provisions in these bilateral trade agreements.

在持续多年的反对声中，欧盟委员会在2022年6月的政策文件中改变了方向。根据其提案，今后有关欧盟贸易协定中可持续发展章节的争端将遵循正常的争端解决程序。但委员会仍做出了保留，在可持续发展争端中，只有在严重违反部分条约的情况下，才会对不遵守有约束力的裁决的行为进行制裁，即违反《巴黎气候公约》和《国际劳工组织基本公约》的情况，后者包括工会自由、禁止强迫劳动、最恶劣形式的童工以及工作条件歧视。应该指出的是，根据该提案，只有当存在严重违反行为时，欧盟才会考虑对不遵守裁决的行为实施制裁，这将创造一个只适用于可持续发展争端的门槛，这一门槛不适用于双边贸易协定下违反贸易法规或知识产权规定的行为。

This new policy is already reflected in the bilateral trade treaty the EU concluded with New Zealand in the summer of 2022.

这项新政策已经反映在欧盟与新西兰于2022年夏季达成的双边贸易条约中。

In sum, where government oversight of TSD commitments is concerned, fewer sustainability treaties are selected, there is a focus on country-specific implementation, and there are limits on enforcement (notably regarding sanctions in case of non-compliance). This contrasts with the wide range of sustainability treaties that companies are expected to oversee globally, without differentiation, under threat of sanctions. What could be the explanation for this discrepancy?

总而言之，就政府对TSD承诺的监督而言，只有少数可持续发展条约受到选择性关注，关注点是特定国家的履行情况，并且在执行方面有所限制（特别是在不遵守情况下的制裁）。这与面临制裁威胁的企业被要求在全球范围内无差别地监督各种可持续发展条约实施情况形成了鲜明对比。为什么存在这种差异？

Perhaps the EU institutions want to limit the controversies that governments need to address. They may worry that quite a few sustainability treaties have had little or disparate effect in practice. A recent meta-analysis by Canada’s Tory University came to this sobering conclusion. In particular,  treaties that did not involve trade or finance, and had no enforcement mechanisms of their own, were found to be ineffective, for example the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. (In passing it may be noted that this Convention is included in the Annex of the Commission’s CSDDD proposal, also in the TSD chapter of the EU’s recent trade agreement with New Zealand (though excluded from sanctions), but not included for instance in the EU’s recent agreement with Vietnam.) In fact, some treaties were judged downright counter-productive in this Tory University analysis, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (This Convention is included in the Annex of the Commission’s CSDDD proposal, but not in the TSD chapters of the EU’s recent trade agreements such as the ones with Vietnam or New Zealand).

也许欧盟机构希望限制政府需要解决的争端。他们可能会担心，相当多的可持续发展条约在实践中收效甚微，或者效果参差不齐——加拿大托里大学最近的一项元分析得到了这个发人深省的结论，特别是那些不涉及贸易或金融、本身没有执行机制的条约，它们被认为是没有实质效果的，例如联合国《消除对妇女一切形式歧视的公约》（该公约包含在欧盟委员会CSDDD提案的附件中，也包含在欧盟与新西兰最近的贸易协定的TSD章节中，尽管被排除在可制裁范围之外；但该公约没有包含在欧盟与越南最近的协定中）。事实上，在托里大学的分析中，一些条约的效果甚至被认为是完全适得其反的，包括联合国《儿童权利公约》（该公约包含在欧盟委员会CSDDD提案的附件中，但未包含在欧盟与越南或新西兰最近的贸易协定的TSD章节中）。

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As a possible explanation for this perceived dysfunction of treaties, the researchers posited that repressive governments score diplomatically by ratifying a treaty, but suffer hardly any negative consequences if they subsequently fail to implement such a treaty. Did the European Commission expect improvement in this disappointing situation through its corporate CSDDD proposal? Decentralized supervision of treaties by private stakeholders does have advantages, at least in theory. This creates a multitude of supervisors, closer to the workplace. But is this benefit always available?

作为对这种条约功能失调的一种可能解释，研究人员猜想可能是由于压制型政府通过批准条约在外交上取得成绩，但如果它们随后未能履行这样的条约，它们也几乎不会遭受任何负面后果。欧盟委员会是否期望通过其针对企业的CSDDD提案来改善这种令人失望的局面？由私主体对条约进行去中心化的监督确实有好处，至少在理论上是这样，这就产生了许多更接近工作场所的监督者。但这种好处总是存在的吗?

What can European companies be expected to do, for instance in a foreign country with a repressive government? Is it reasonable to demand that companies speak up when a third country has reacted with hostility to such initiatives? To take an example, the Chinese reaction against H&M, Adidas and some other companies that raised critical questions about forced labor in Xinjiang is troublesome. Should the EU and Member States not take a stand together with their companies against violations of sustainability treaties, particularly in respect of countries where the EU has identified implementation priorities?

例如，在一个压制型政府统治的国家，我们能期望欧洲企业做些什么呢？当第三国对这些倡议表现出敌意时，要求企业公开表态合理吗？举个例子，中国对H&M、阿迪达斯和其他一些提出新疆强迫劳动问题的公司的反应是令人不安的。欧盟及其成员国是否应该与其企业共同反对违反可持续发展条约的行为，特别是在欧盟已确定了实施优先级的国家？

Other questions remain. For example, in its trade policy paper of June 2022 the Commission cautiously states that it still wants to investigate the possibility of subjecting the non-implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity to sanctions within the context of its free trade agreements. Yet in its CSDDD proposal of February 2022 the Commission showed no reservation in mandating companies, on pain of sanctions, to monitor their entire value chain in every country (be it a preferential or non-preferential trading partner of the EU) with respect to violations of the Biodiversity Convention as well as subsequent protocols.

其他问题也同样存在。例如，在2022年6月的贸易政策文件中，欧盟委员会谨慎地表示，它仍然希望在其自由贸易协定的范围内评估对不履行《生物多样性公约》的情况实施制裁的可能性。然而，在2022年2月的CSDDD提案中，欧盟委员会在要求企业在其整个价值链上的每个国家（无论是欧盟的优惠或非优惠贸易伙伴）没有保留地监督违反《生物多样性公约》及其后续议定书的行为，否则将受到制裁。

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In short, moving from non-enforceable to binding and sanctionable TSD commitments in the trade policy area has led the European Commission to opt for more selectivity and country differentiation. The Commission’s CSDDD proposal represents a similar move towards more binding sustainability-related obligations for companies. Pursuant to the UN Guidelines on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, companies have a responsibility to broadly supervise human rights, labour and environmental concerns that arise in their value chain. But, barring exceptional cases, such corporate responsibility is limited and does not amount to sanctionable obligations. This will change with the Commission’s CSDDD proposal. Yet contrary to its initiative in the trade policy area, the Commission in its CSDDD proposal makes hardly any selection amongst sustainability treaties, and no differentiation amongst foreign countries.

简而言之，在贸易政策领域，从不可执行的TSD承诺转向具有约束力和可制裁的TSD承诺，导致欧盟委员会采取了更具选择性和国别性的政策。欧盟委员会的CSDDD提案代表了类似的举措，即为企业设置更具约束力的可持续发展义务。根据联合国《企业与人权准则》和经合组织《跨国企业准则》，企业有责任对其价值链上出现的人权、劳工和环境问题进行广泛监督，但除特殊情况外，企业的这种责任是有限的，不构成可制裁的义务。这将随着欧盟委员会的CSDDD提案而改变。然而，与其在贸易政策领域的倡议相反，欧盟委员会在其CSDDD提案中几乎没有对可持续发展条约进行任何选择，也没有在国家之间进行区分。

Despite Oscar Wilde’s misgivings, more consistency is desirable. There needs to be a better connection between obligations that EU governments impose on themselves, and want to impose on companies, when it comes to implementation, enforcement and sanctions in respect of sustainability treaties.

尽管奥斯卡·王尔德心存疑虑，但更充分的一致性是可取的。在可持续发展条约的实施、执行和制裁方面，欧盟政府给自己施加的义务和希望给企业施加的义务之间需要更好地联系起来。

原文发表时间：2022年11月9日