Human rights due diligence (HRDD) has become a central organizing concept in the business and human rights (BHR) discourse. Originally framed as a managerial process under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), it has evolved from a soft-law expectation into a binding legal obligation. In response to persistent governance gaps, structural human rights violations in global supply chains and the limits of voluntary frameworks, governments are increasingly experimenting with mandatory HRDD laws that require companies to identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate adverse human rights impacts.
Against this backdrop, Victoriana Leonora Corte Gonzaga’s Devida Diligência em Direitos Humanos: Origem, Conceito e Evolução dos Marcos Legais em Perspectiva Comparada offers one of the most comprehensive and analytically rigorous accounts of HRDD’s evolution – which she calls ‘juridification’ – to date. The book traces the concept’s origins, clarifies its normative content, and examines how HRDD is being translated into binding legal frameworks across jurisdictions, showing how design choices shape the scope and substance of corporate accountability. Gonzaga addresses a notable gap in the literature by providing an analysis of HRDD in Portuguese rooted in the Brazilian research context. At the same time, the book provides a valuable basis for understanding broader contemporary regulatory debates and their implications, for example, in light of ongoing developments surrounding the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and subsequent Omnibus reform initiatives.
One of the book’s strengths lies in its clear and sequential structure. Gonzaga guides readers through four chapters that progressively develop conceptual clarity and comparative insight, preceded by an introduction that situates HRDD within broader debates on corporate responsibility and international human rights law. The analysis is framed around a clear question: what does the global HRDD regulatory landscape look like, and how does it vary across jurisdictions? While HRDD laws are anchored in the normative orientation of the UNGPs, Gonzaga hypothesizes that they reflect distinct regulatory choices and aims with significant consequences for corporate accountability.
Chapter 1 makes a persuasive case for why HRDD demands sustained scholarly attention, particularly in the Brazilian context. Gonzaga situates the persistence of systemic human rights violations, the absence of dedicated national HRDD legislation, and the growing exposure of Brazilian companies to foreign due diligence requirements within a broader lack of conceptual coherence and regulatory literacy. By framing these challenges at the intersection of global legal developments and domestic realities, the chapter positions the book as both a timely scholarly intervention and a practically relevant resource.
Chapter 2 sets out the book’s methodological design. Gonzaga adopts a qualitative comparative legal approach grounded in UN materials, legislative texts and secondary literature. Using the UNGPs as a normative anchor, the analysis systematically compares binding HRDD instruments using seven criteria: the nature of the obligation (reporting versus conduct), territorial scope, company-size thresholds, sectoral coverage, material scope, liability and sanctions and monitoring mechanisms. Each criterion captures a core structural dimension of HRDD regulation, and together they provide a coherent basis for comparing diverse legal regimes. Rather than treating HRDD laws as functionally equivalent, this framework makes visible the regulatory choices embedded in different legal designs. The chapter’s transparency and methodological precision strengthen the credibility of the analysis and provide readers with a replicable tool for future research.
Chapter 3 reconstructs the conceptual genealogy of HRDD through a careful historical and normative analysis. Gonzaga identifies three strands shaping its contemporary meaning: its origins in the due diligence defence of U.S. securities law, its incorporation into corporate governance and risk management practices and its development within international human rights law as a standard for assessing state responsibility. By tracing these strands through the mandate of John Ruggie, the consolidation of the UNGPs and related governance frameworks, Gonzaga shows how HRDD has emerged as the primary mechanism through which companies are expected to operationalize their responsibility to respect human rights. The chapter’s central contribution lies in its sustained conceptual clarification of HRDD beyond traditional audit and corporate risk management approaches. Rather than focusing on risks to the company, HRDD is presented as an ongoing and proactive process oriented towards rights-holders, a framing Gonzaga convincingly shows to be essential to preserving the concept’s normative foundations.
Chapter 4 forms the analytical core of the book. Applying the seven criteria developed earlier, Gonzaga examines ten binding legal instruments governing human rights due diligence across North America, Europe and Australia. On this basis, she develops a taxonomy distinguishing between transparency-based regimes and conduct-based HRDD frameworks. While the former rely primarily on disclosure obligations and often lack effective enforcement mechanisms, the latter impose procedural or substantive duties supported by oversight and liability provisions. The analysis dispels the assumption that HRDD laws form a coherent or convergent category, instead demonstrating significant variation in scope, enforcement and normative ambition. A notable strength of the chapter lies in its use of tables and visual syntheses, which distil complex legal material into accessible comparative formats. The chapter concludes with a focused discussion of HRDD initiatives and policy debates in Brazil, highlighting both the potential for adopting an ambitious, UNGP-aligned framework and the risk of reproducing weaker transparency-based models. This engagement with domestic debates adds an important layer of contextual relevance.
The book makes three principal contributions to BHR scholarship. First, it provides much-needed conceptual clarity at a moment when HRDD is frequently conflated with adjacent managerial tools. By distinguishing HRDD from corporate risk management exercises, Gonzaga reinforces the normative core of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. This clarification is particularly valuable in legislative and compliance debates, where competing interpretations risk diluting the scope and ambition of HRDD regimes.
Second, the book’s methodological and analytical rigor constitutes a significant contribution in its own right. The analytical framework enables a more precise understanding of ‘juridification’ as a variable process rather than a simple shift from soft to hard law. By foregrounding differences in scope, thresholds, liability and oversight mechanisms, the analysis allows for a nuanced assessment of how HRDD regimes vary in intensity and effect across jurisdictions. Gonzaga’s taxonomy of HRDD legislation is directly relevant to both research and practice, offering a valuable reference point for navigating regulatory environments and their implications for HRDD implementation, and strengthening the analytical foundations for scholars, policymakers and professionals alike.
Third, the book makes a significant contribution by expanding access to BHR scholarship in Portuguese. Its comparative orientation situates Brazilian debates firmly within global developments in HRDD regulation, while Gonzaga’s clear prose, logical structure and extensive referencing enhance the book’s pedagogical and practical value.
One constructive observation concerns enforcement and remedy. While the book offers a rigorous analysis of legal design, readers may wish for greater engagement with how HRDD laws are enforced in practice and implemented by companies across jurisdictions. Closer attention to these dimensions would further clarify whether the ongoing ‘juridification’ of HRDD is translating into meaningful corporate accountability and changes in business conduct. This limitation reflects the complexity of the regulatory landscape and the current scarcity of empirical material rather than any substantive shortcoming of the book. Gonzaga’s analysis provides a strong foundation for future research on enforcement trajectories and the effectiveness of HRDD regimes.
Devida Diligência em Direitos Humanos: Origem, Conceito e Evolução dos Marcos Legais em Perspectiva Comparada is a timely and analytically rigorous contribution to the BHR literature. Through its combination of conceptual precision, systematic comparative analysis of global laws and sustained engagement with the Brazilian legal and policy context, the book offers a compelling account of HRDD’s transformation from a governance principle into a legal obligation. By treating HRDD as a normative process rather than a technical compliance exercise, Gonzaga clarifies what is at stake in contemporary regulatory debates and why legal design choices carry far-reaching implications for corporate accountability. As HRDD regimes proliferate and diverge, the book offers an indispensable reference for assessing their ambition and effectiveness, making it essential reading for scholars, policymakers and practitioners shaping corporate human rights accountability in Brazil and beyond.
