Contract Law Aspects of Sustainable Companies’ Certification in the Global Value Chain

Abstract

Abstract Against the background of economic globalization, sustainable development has attracted increasing attention. Given the boundary limits of jurisdiction, national legal systems are often insufficient to promote sustainability on a transnational level. Intergovernmental agreements and the private self-regulation are at play to fill the gap. As an effective instrument of the latter, sustainable companies’ certification assesses the sustainability of the company as a whole rather than evaluate particular products or services. Although private certification schemes vary greatly across different countries, they are all based on contracts. Three parties are involved in the certification regime, namely certification bodies, companies, and third parties such as customers as well as investors. There are different legal relationships between each two of them. In the case of misleading certification, the German Civil Law provides different approaches to solve disputes according to the legal relationship between the parties.