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DIGNITAS ■ Report on International Conference on Corporate Accountability, ...
On the 16th of September 2024, New University hosted a 
conference dedicated to corporate accountability, human rights, 
and climate change in Slovenia and beyond. The conference 
was part of the ARIS project on Corporate accountability, human 
rights, and climate change.
One of the main objectives of this conference was to theoreti-
cally analyze companies‘ responsibility for human rights related 
to climate change. The second objective was to develop theoreti-
cal and normative foundations for a coherent and fair Slovenian 
and international legal order. The conference undertook the for-
midable task of identifying the philosophical, legal, and norma-
tive underpinnings of corporate accountability for the negative 
impacts of climate change on human rights in Slovenia and be-
yond. This report shows that the conference was successful in 
this task it set forth as it critically investigated the shortcomings of 
the current domestic legal system and its framework in aspiration 
of developing a holistic theoretical and normative model for im-
proving said corporate accountability, human rights and climate 
change regulation.
The conference began at 9 o‘clock at the premises of New 
University‘s European Faculty of Law. The building that gives aca-
demic home to the mentioned institution of learning is a marvel-
lous architectural gem, located in the heart of the old part of Lju-
bljana, a fine example of modern architecture built at the begin-
ning of the 20th century. The structure offers a perfect place for 
studying, learning, academic endeavour and exchanging ideas. 
Report on International Conference 
on Corporate Accountability, Human 
Rights, and Climate Change in 
Slovenia and Beyond
Blaž Marinčič Udvanc
*
* 
PhD (European Faculty of Law, New University). This report was prepared within research project 
on“Corporate accountability, human rights, and climate change: Towards coherent and just Slovenian 
and international legal order” (ID JP-50171”), which is financially supported by the Slovenian Rese-
arch and Innovation Agency.

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DIGNITAS ■ Climate Change Law
The conference was organized into two panels, each contain-
ing 3 speakers. This arrangement proved brilliant as it offered 
enough time for each participant‘s presentation and questions 
and discussion.
The first panel included three speakers: Laura Valle from the 
Free University of Bolzano, Carmen Márquez Carrasco from 
the University of Sevilla, and Janja Hojnik from the University 
of Maribor. Matej Avbelj from New University chaired this first 
panel.
The second panel also accommodated 3 speakers; Özlem 
Zingil from Center for Spatial Justice in Istanbul initialized the 
discussion, followed by Sandra Martinič from Office of the Gov-
ernment of the Republic of Slovenia for Post Flood and Land-
slide Reconstruction and topped off by Matej Avbelj from New 
Univerity. The second panel was chaired by Gorazd Justinek 
from New University.
Before the first panel of the well-attended conference started, 
the leader of the aforementioned project, Jernej Letnar Černič, 
addressed the attendees with a few critical thoughts about state 
policy, explaining that in practise, there is no supervision of 
the implementation of relevant regulation but on paper every-
thing looks good. He spoke about creating a holistic approach 
to obtaining a climate change normative theoretical model for 
businesses.
The first speaker of the first panel was Laura Valle from Bolza-
no. In her presentation she addressed contrasting greenwashing 
in the new EU Directive 2024/825 in the Directive Proposal of 
Green Claims. She explained that greenwashing poses a threat 
to human rights, the environment and also to social justice. She 
explained the term greenwashing as the practise of compa-
nies that began to use green advertising as a marketing tool. In 
terms, the European Union wants to contrast this practise as it is 
against the notion of sustainability. What struck the attendees as 
the most shocking information was the fact that in 2020, more 
than 50% were false green claims by companies.
Valle explained that greenwashing is an obstacle to sustain-
ability goals and that it is misleading consumers as it is not meas-
urable but generic which in the end means that consumers do 
not realize that it is not really good for the environment in the 
way that the companies want them to believe while advertising 

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DIGNITAS ■ Report on International Conference on Corporate Accountability, ...
their products. Valle emphasized that this is an unfair commer-
cial practise due to the fact that it is not necessarily true when 
companies put a text on the packaging of their product saying 
that their product is eco-sustainable and carbon neutral.
Valle deduced that companies cannot prove this with num-
bers which also prevents the actual eco sustainable consumer 
choice because they cannot choose the genuine choice and this 
action alters and damages economic competition while also 
generating a loss of trust in environmental claims because con-
sumers after a while of putting up with such practise from com-
panies think that everything is a joke. She gave a clear demon-
stration of such a situation with the example of the Volkswagen 
DieselGate scandal. Volkswagen claimed that their models were 
obtaining the EU standards for pollution, yet this was only true 
for the moment of the test. The car was in line with the claimed 
standards at the time of testing, but not in the real-life use of the 
car. She added that there are still open cases in Italy, Germany 
and France in regard to this scandal. To the aforementioned 
Volkswagen example she added another example in the form 
of green fares where airflight companies urge consumers to pay 
more if they want to achieve sustainable goals.
On the legislative level, consumers have a central role in the 
EU Directive 2024/825 from March 2024. Valle explained with 
great care how greenwashing practises also concern market 
competition, especially competition that acts well and is true to 
sustainability goals.
After her presentation, a lively debate followed in which Valle 
elaborated on how important consumers are in the green transi-
tion so they need to be informed, because nowadays they are 
not very well informed, which is regrettable. Valle coincided 
that some greenwashing practises have already been blacklisted 
in the Annex I. of the Directive 2005/29. Continuing, Valle was 
very thorough on why sometimes sanctions against greenwash-
ing are not very effective; 1) too low administrative sanctions, 
2) weak collective redress, 3) class action of consumers, 4) indi-
vidual actions. The green claim proposal constitutes of preven-
tive control in ex-ante verification of claims. Valle also touched 
on the topic of exemptions for microenterprises.
As the discussion of the first speaker‘s presentation neared 
the end, Valle presented her views about the future of green-

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DIGNITAS ■ Climate Change Law
washing. She opined that the market‘s behaviour will change 
because every company is doing this, and as sustainability is 
becoming mandatory, this practise will decrease. Valle closed 
that because greenwashing is our current reality, we need more 
collective redress and stronger administrative sanctions.
The second speaker of the first panel was Carmen Márquez 
Carrasco from Sevilla. Great acclaim from the attendees followed 
after her initial comparison of the beauty of the host city of Lju-
bljana to Sevilla before she started her presentation. Márquez 
Carrasco successfully tackled two topics for specialists in her 
presentation; 1) climate litigation and 2) due diligence in envi-
ronmental law. She went into considerable detail in regard to 
the responsibilities of the companies to prevent and mitigate the 
consequences of their actions.
Márquez Carrasco explained how climate litigation has been 
addressing state obligations in recent years. She also pointed 
out the relevant cases brought before the European Court for 
Human Rights and other international tribunals.
In the visible interest of the attendees and the panel, she de-
scribed how civil society has been pushing to address corporate 
accountability. Márquez Carrasco added that there is a move-
ment to convert due diligence into an obligation, tallied with the 
fact that France adopted this and also Norway for supply chains. 
Márquez Carrasco further stated that the French law gives duty 
to the company to prevent effects on climate. This means an ob-
ligation to adopt a transition plan in accordance with the impact 
on the environment.
When giving an explanation of mandatory due diligence, 
Márquez Carrasco detailed how you can use laws to further de-
velop legislative frameworks and highlighted The Netherlands, 
which does not have it but the Dutch courts interpret interna-
tional law to be part of national law. In addition to that, the 
process of adopting the law about climate change and relevant 
due diligence can serve as a gap filler, according to her. The at-
tendees were fascinated to hear the BNP Paribas bank case and 
the explanation of Márquez Carrasco on how cases against the 
bank were a development in the law as the law says that com-
panies need to provide a plan. In her conclusion, Márquez Car-
rasco added that this can prove to be a complementary factor to 
government standards.

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The final speaker of the first panel was Janja Hojnik from 
Maribor. The topic of her presentation was Borrow, Use, Return: 
Enhancing Sustainability through Libraries of Things. Hojnik de-
scribed libraries of things as a new business model that is not 
per se sustainable because as the sharing economy developed, 
it was initially thought to be sustainable, but that was only in the 
beginning. Hojnik added that it is up to the regulators to incen-
tivize only those models that are really sustainable.
To much delight of the attendees, Hojnik gave many clear 
examples; starting with libraries for jeans and expensive bags, 
emphasizing the example of a Dutch store called MUD jeans and 
an example of a system for luxury items named Rent the Run-
way. To this, Hojnik followed with an example of tool libraries, 
where you pay a membership to rent things, in this case, tools, 
that you do not need every day or have no place in your home 
for them. She explained that the rise of the internet provided 
new items to rent out but made it clear that this system is noth-
ing new, as she provided an adamant example of the program 
called Power by the Hour which was made by Rolls Royce more 
than 60 years ago.
Later on, Hojnik elucidated access-based economy through 
car sharing, bike sharing and ride-sharing. Attendees were keen 
to hear about smart farms renting irrigation systems instead of 
buying them when needed. Hojnik foregrounded the fact that all 
of this is a product service business as you buy the service, not 
the product. She explained this through the example of students 
being able to either buy textbooks or buy access to a textbook 
platform or just borrow them in a library the old-fashioned way. 
The main point here, as she emphasized, was that one is not the 
owner, but is merely renting it. That is why these business mod-
els are a service.
Hojnik explained in detail that there is a blurred distinction 
between goods and services based on the fact that consumers 
want a service. She added that if someone wants to drill a hole, 
they do not need to buy the entire tool just to drill one hole. This 
straightforward explanation got the point across.
In addition to that, Hojnik stated that dematerialization is 
widely spread as millennials are more environmentally aware, 
yet Gen Z is the most materialistic generation. This data took 
many by surprise. She continued by describing how consum-

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DIGNITAS ■ Climate Change Law
ers put their needs first, even in front of sustainability and that 
is why we have to be vigilant, as it can have a negative impact 
because even car sharing does not have to be sustainable.
Hojnik gave some finishing thoughts regarding the state 
which, according to her, needs to incentivize the company and 
the consumer. As she precisely put it, the system is still built 
for ownership, but we need to change, especially the relevant 
consumer laws, into buying a service instead. In the end, she 
explained that even sharing does not mean that it is per se more 
sustainable, although she pointed out that BMW which develops 
sharing systems for cars, also produces them for consumers who 
buy them. She added insight that products break sooner, so the 
regulators actually think about prolonging this, which would go 
something along the lines of washing machines needing to work 
for 15 years.
Chairing the first panel was Matej Avbelj. At the end of the 
panel, he perfectly summed up the content of the speakers: cor-
porate accountability for negative impact on environmental sus-
tainability from Laura Valle, different legal strategies from Car-
men Márquez Carrasco and new models for sustainability from 
Janja Hojnik.
Questions from the attendees followed this. Márquez Carras-
co explained that the momentum of the topic is slowing down 
due to new relations, but the common heritage of mankind 
still applies to non-state actors as well. In her opinion, public 
procurement can have an impact similar to education when it 
comes to the relevant dilemmas discussed. The startling ques-
tion of how we offset if the forests burn down was an eye-open-
er to many. Carbon offsets cannot solve everything and this was 
made clear. Márquez Carrasco added that we need to diagnose 
social needs and warned that what is shown to the public may 
only be partial. She added that bilateral agreements between na-
tions can be a way of solving environmental challenges. Hojnik 
chimed in to the aforementioned question with an example of 
Slovenia‘s solar panels showing that when regulation changes, 
the consumers are no longer interested. The main fact here was 
that when winter comes solar panels are not as effective. She 
enlightened the attendees that now even ELES, a Slovenian elec-
tric distribution system operator, is supporting solar panels, but 
way back they claimed solar panels are only burdening the sys-

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DIGNITAS ■ Report on International Conference on Corporate Accountability, ...
tem, but nowadays in winter, they take more than they produce. 
Márquez Carrasco agreed and stated a fact that surprised many; 
in Spain they have so much energy from solar panels on some 
days that it changes the price of electricity. She also commented 
on the question of desalination, saying that it would prove to 
be too much hassle for Spain and half-jokingly said that Madrid 
does not have enough funds even with EU money. She believes 
we need to adopt a pragmatic solution, but she stated that prag-
matism needs principles and values through the rule of law and 
democracy.
Hojnik touched upon what it was said and added how EU 
states are not united enough and do not stand together but only 
have common commercial policies, while leaving other fields to 
be national. She concluded that member states are now more 
diverse and cannot have common solutions.
Jernej Letnar Černič joined the discussion by emphasizing 
that the challenge here is to put all the points into one holistic 
system. In his opinion, it will be exigent to establish who are 
the duty holders, and litigation is one way to do it but it triggers 
individual cases and does not envisage the problem as a whole. 
He elaborated that there is a commitment on the declaratory lev-
el, but in practise it is not so, for example the capital city of Slo-
venia is one of the most polluted cities. Letnar Černič stated that 
there exists a coherence gap between declaratory norms and 
practise. He followed this with a stark question of how many 
people in Ljubljana died from air pollution and what is the ac-
countability of energy companies for this. 
Amongst the array of questions from the attendees were also 
two very specific questions about whether all of this is a failure 
of state institutions and whether litigation is a viable option. Lau-
ra Valle answered that states and regions are responsible. Her 
point of view is that greenwashing does not comply with the law 
as the Paris Agreement, is in fact, law. She expounded how busi-
nesses fear losing richness and disappearing and that compa-
nies always fear losing something. She softened the narrative by 
stating that when you are in the beginning you make mistakes, 
in view of the fact that legislative acts are connected and we 
just need to learn how to connect them. Her splendid idea was 
to first apply it to supply chains in our own countries; because 
we need to first implement human rights in our own countries 

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not only in faraway countries where they make fabrics. Valle 
also gives high importance to education, stating that the educa-
tion of consumers is strategic due to the fact that consumers are 
important in a way not to buy these clothes that are produced 
in a certain scheme. Valle explained that even small companies 
should comply with standards. She concluded by stating how 
important it is to open such discussions in academics.
Márquez Carrasco continued the answer and built upon it 
by saying how litigation is good, especially reminding us of the 
Swiss women‘s climate case, because the state has an obligation 
to fill the gap. Hojnik also provided her view on how in the past 
we were worried about profit, but now it is about restrictions, 
illustrating this by the example of wealthy people having private 
jets and poor people fearing restrictions on buying beef. She 
gave a very sturdy argument in the form of the importance of 
comfort; in our private life we want to be comfortable and get 
the most things for our money. She further augmented this by 
saying there are few social media influencers who showcase 
how few things they have but there are a lot of social media in-
fluencers who show how many things they have.
With this, the first panel concluded, and a coffee break fol-
lowed, which included an abundance of tea, coffee, biscuits, and 
pleasant chatting among conference participants.
Gorazd Justinek chaired the second panel. The panel also had 
3 participants; Özlem Zingil, Sandra Martinič and Matej Avbelj.
The first one to open in the second panel was Özlem Zingil 
from Turkey. Her topic was Climate Change, Business and Hu-
man Rights in Turkey. As a human rights lawyer, she gave the 
attendees a valuable insight into the consequences of the failure 
of national implementation. She showcased this through Genc 
and Demirgen v. Turkey group of cases which is still pending 
implementation.
She explained the emergence of legal mobilization through 
the presentation of the Bergama gold mines case from 1979, 
which was dubbed the big bank. Zingil explained the case to the 
attendees who were desirous to hear how the case was about 
the fact that the investors wanted to eradicate legal obstacles so 
they could invest in gold mines. Later in the attendees were flab-
bergasted to hear about putting growth ahead of human rights 
and the environment which was the case here.

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Zingil touched upon a selective approach in business and 
human rights, where business and work life are of interest at 
the state level. She assessed corporate practices and highlighted 
how they fail in meaningful stakeholder engagement and ig-
nore public opposition to projects, how they lack transparency, 
how they fail to address adverse impacts on the environment 
and human rights and the lack of policies. Zingil also shared 
her thoughts on various strategy papers and action plans on cli-
mate change. Attendees listened with great interest as she spoke 
about a leaked, so-called confidential, Turkish Climate law. She 
explained how secrecy muddies the water and causes climate 
disinformation and creates barriers for communities to prevent 
public debate on key issues. It was worrisome to hear about the 
visible use of SLAPPs, taking the form of compensation lawsuits 
and complaints to prompt criminal proceedings. Zingil pointed 
out that in a covert SLAPP the result is guaranteed because com-
panies are hidden behind law enforcement as they play an ac-
tive role in making the law enforcement intervene so that law 
enforcement disperses protesters and detains them, which in 
the end means that the companies get the result because protest-
ers are in prison.
Attendees were absorbed with curiosity upon hearing Zin-
gil present the Case of Akbelen Forest, especially when she ex-
plained the Akbelen Forest Watch. The permit for mining activi-
ties was issued in 2021 and the company started deforestation 
but was met with public outcry. The company said they con-
tribute to the economy and if the trees are not cut down the 
investment will stop. Zingil told the visibly distraught attendees 
that the company even put an advertisement in the newspaper 
saying that this is our bread and butter. She explained how this 
case contained judicial harassment and covert SLAPPs so that 
protesters must not enter the region. After all of this dismay that 
was caused, the company is silent and pretends nothing has 
happened.
Following Özlem Zingil in the second panel, was the next 
speaker, Sandra Martinič from the Office of the Government of 
the Republic of Slovenia for Post-Flood and Landslide Recon-
struction. She explained that the biggest challenge is time as 
it is impossible to reconstruct in one year and added that two 
laws were implemented after the floods to speed up the pro-

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cess. Another thing that she pointed out was the fact that 187 
municipalities were affected, and they cannot compare region 
Koroška with region Savinjska, so this has to be taken into ac-
count regarding the lengthy process of reconstruction. Attend-
ees were compelled to hear of the different phases; Martinič 
explained that the first phase was intervention, where the main 
goal was that there were no casualties. This intervention phase 
was extended. It is this phase in which the commander of civil 
protection organizes who needs to do something and divides 
the task amongst those who are on the field. 
The next phase is reconstruction. Martinič said that in this 
phase, many actors have different approaches; for example, the 
prime minister wanted to have a coordinator first. The coordi-
nator says what to do on an operational level, while the strate-
gic level is about how to distribute financial aid. In this case, 
as Martinič accentuated, the first priority was a flooded kinder-
garten. She provided clear data, that the government gave 10 
million euros to Karitas and the Red Cross to disperse among 
people quickly. One of the main objectives was also how to pay 
for people‘s accommodation. Martinič pointed out another posi-
tive take from the government; they give 20% of the estimate 
right now to the affected person so they can immediately start 
reconstructing their house. One of the obstacles the government 
faced was the need to research every area of expertise and de-
velop a constructive solution. Attendees were taken aback by 
hearing how many buildings were identified as life threatening 
in case something like this happened again: 345 buildings were 
classified as such. The people living in these houses had to be 
moved and Martinič explained that some of them wanted to go 
immediately. There is a silver lining to all of this; 85 houses were 
declared to be structurally safe. Martinič also told the attendees 
another interesting fact, one of the people in a house that was 
found to be safe, wanted to go despite the house being ok. 
Martinič finished her presentation by saying that most people 
want to be financially reimbursed so that they can build their 
new house themselves and not move straight into a new house 
that will be built for them.
The final speaker of the second panel was Matej Avbelj. His 
presentation revolved around the theoretical challenges of cor-
porate accountability for climate change. He delineated that the 

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DIGNITAS ■ Report on International Conference on Corporate Accountability, ...
task is how to adapt our legal understanding to assure corporate 
accountability for climate change. Avbelj stated that the climate 
change question used to fall under public international law, but 
briefed everyone that corporations are still private actors and are 
not subjects of public law. This brought him to the exploration 
of how we need to think differently; there are more than 5000 
different legislation around the world tackling climate change 
and this poses a problem as corporations are legal subjects in a 
nation and have their duties there.
Avbelj thought out an astutely ingenious differentiation be-
tween supervisory, fiscal, legal, market, peer and reputational 
accountability. He further elaborated that supervisory and fiscal 
accountability is on the state; legal accountability is the basis 
for the two aforementioned accountabilities above. Avbelj then 
defined that corporate accountability can be enforced through 
market pressure while other corporations provide peer pres-
sure. He also explained that reputational accountability comes 
from the consumers.
In his opinion, this is a soft law direction with informal instru-
ments. Avbelj later on provided a view on how the state is the 
one which eventually fixes the environment. Still, it does not 
occupy an exclusive position like it used to have as civil society 
organizations are equally as important now which in turn means 
that the state is not the exclusive container of law now. Still, at 
the same time international law cannot capture the complexity 
of it all. On this basis, Avbelj built a cleverly sorted legal theoreti-
cal response; he mentioned a strong push towards global con-
stitutionalism but in his opinion this goes too far as it interprets 
the concepts too much and the stretching of the concepts is on 
the verge of breaking them. Avbelj suggested that transnational 
law preserves everything and it is not only positive law but also 
here soft law mechanisms have an important role.
Avbelj concluded his knowledgeable presentation by voic-
ing out how we actually have to recognize that a whole new 
source of law has already developed and it is an agenda setter 
for the future as transnational law helps us to better understand 
accountability.
The chair of the second panel, Gorazd Justinek expressed 
his support of the notion that this topic needs to be addressed 
on a global scale and that the European Union needs to take on 

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a stronger role because it is natural to cooperate. He also gave 
some food for thought to everyone in attendance by saying that 
most of the startups recently come from the IT industry and 
they use a lot of electricity so Volkswagen is not the only one of 
concern here.
Another dynamic discourse ensued after chair Gorazd 
Justinek opened up the debate for questions. Through her an-
swers, Özlem Zingil provided another valuable input; she no-
ticed that when they are discussing with rights holders, they 
see that they need more tools to go forward as this is a serious 
problem. She mentioned how holders transfer all their shares 
to a letterbox company in the Netherlands overnight and right 
there is the gap, so there exists a need for collaboration in moni-
toring the real impacts of the legislation and for the legislčation 
to work, transnational collaboration is crucially needed.
Martinič also answered a few questions and provided an in-
teresting fact; many houses in Slovenia are not insured and this 
became a problem due to the floods, when asked why their 
house was not insured, the people responded by saying they 
were not flooded for 30 years and they did not insure the house 
because it was a long time ago since they were last flooded. 
Martinič added that the damage to houses was substantial and 
there is a special evaluation for this plus some extra money in 
addition to that because the government is sort of forcing them 
out of the house because the house is dangerous and not fit for 
habitancy. The government also decided that it would be forbid-
den to ever again build anything in such a dangerous place. She 
concluded her answer by saying they need to have an individual 
approach and because of this it will take a while to finish recon-
struction.
Avbelj also responded by stating that there are many sources 
of political power needed to come together for this noble cause 
and pondered how there are two socially constructed challeng-
es: 1) climate change that is man-made and 2) geopolitically 
things have drastically changed for the West as China and India 
are not taking part in any of this whatsoever. He concluded that 
we have not done much about the Paris Agreement because 
others are not playing sincerely and the real problem here is 
the challenge of political economy as everything has political 
consequences.

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DIGNITAS ■ Report on International Conference on Corporate Accountability, ...
To wrap up this academically gainful and also intellectually 
fruitful conference, the lead of the mentioned project, Jernej 
Letnar Černič stepped up to the platform to speak a few words. 
He expressed his joy over the fact that the goal of this confer-
ence was met, which was aiming to trigger intellectual discus-
sion about climate change and business. Letnar Černič once 
again underlined the importance of the need to engage different 
stakeholders on this topic.