The limitations of contractual due diligence mechanisms under the CSDDD in addressing gender-specific risks. Illustrated by the example of the gender pay gap in Mercedes Benz's Turkish automotive supply chains

Abstract

This research examined the limitations of contractual due diligence mechanisms under the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in addressing gender-specific risks, drawing attention to the example of the gender pay gap in Turkish automotive supply chains. Using a legal doctrinal and illustrative method, the thesis examined the CSDDD framework and the conceptual foundations of mHREDD under the UNGPs and OECD Guidance. It then assessed how the Directive’s material scope, the appropriateness criteria under Arts. 10 and 11 CSDDD, contractual instruments, and verification mechanisms limit the capacity of contractual due diligence mechanisms to address gender-related risks. These findings were illustrated through the example of Mercedes-Benz’s business operations in Turkish automotive supply chains. At a normative level, the material scope of the Directive concentrates due diligence at Tier 1 suppliers, while women are disproportionately represented deeper in the value chain; the Directive’s framework for defining adverse human rights impacts provides no clear pathway for capturing risks that are structural rather than the product of a single identifiable act; and the private law instruments relied upon, including codes of conduct and verification mechanisms, inherit a gender-blind approach absent voluntary company action. While the Omnibus I amendments reinforced this narrowing, the research found that most of these limitations were already present in the originally adopted CSDDD, rather than resulting solely from the amendments. At an operational level, the illustrative example of Mercedes-Benz showed that companies may reproduce these gender-blind limitations, but may also introduce further limitations of their own by failing to adopt the Directive's risk-sharing approach in favor of a risk-shifting one, despite this being precisely what the Directive sought to prevent. This was reflected in Mercedes-Benz’s governance framework, where non-discrimination obligations are framed predominantly as supplier-only guarantees rather than as recognition of the company’s own contribution to adverse impacts. This thesis demonstrates that, despite the CSDDD’s shift towards a shared responsibility, contractual due diligence mechanisms alone cannot serve as a ‘silver bullet solution’ for gender-related risks such as the gender pay gap. Rather, addressing such risks requires the kind of polycentric approach reflected in Ruggie’s original conception of the UNGPs, in which state-based regulation, civil society oversight, and corporate self-regulation function as complementary, mutually reinforcing systems rather than substitutes for one another. women