The French National Assembly [official website] approved a law [text, in French] on Tuesday that would make French parent corporations liable for human rights violations committed by their subsidiary companies located anywhere in the world. Parent corporations subject to the law will be held to a higher standard of oversight for the actions taken by their subsidiaries. The law seeks to prevent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, grave bodily or environmental harms, and sanitary risks. The law was previously rejected by the Senate but was given final approval by the National Assembly. Conservative lawmakers have referred the matter to the Constitutional Council.

The French law was inspired [Le Monde report, in French] by the 2013 collapse of a factory in Bangladesh where it became known French clothing brands were being manufactured. An estimated 4,000 workers were buried under the rubble and more than 1,000 people were killed [JURIST report]. The French companies using the factory blamed their suppliers and were not liable for the safety violations under French law at the time. In April Bangladeshi workers gathered [JURIST report] on the third anniversary of the Rana Plaza garment factory disaster to demand justice for the incident. In July a Bangladesh court officially indicted [JURIST report] 41 people with murder stemming from the 2013 garment factory collapse after finding that the staff allegedly forced workers to stay in the unstable establishment despite concerns that the structure was visibly cracking.