A duty under customary international law and a condition for funding under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility: the genealogy of the “do no significant harm” principle

Abstract

EU Member States are obliged to apply the “Do no significant harm” principle in their public procurement procedures when their projects are financed under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Despite the binding nature of this novel principle, doubts persist around its scope and implications. This contribution aims at tracing the evolution of the “no-harm” rule, which is recognised as a rule of customary international law at the international level while in the EU it was elaborated as a mandatory condition on public procurement contracts falling under the RRF framework.