Public procurement and core human rights: a sketch of the European Union legal framework

Study of Social and Environmental Needs for the Selection of Sustainable Criteria in the Procurement of Public Works

“…The 2004 directives (Directive 2004/18/EC and Directive 2004/17/EC) explicitly stated that environmental criteria could be considered in procurement procedures as obligatory technical specifications for the product or service or as award criteria [9]. Subsequently, social considerations became relevant in public procurement [10]. The 2014 directives (Directive 2014/24/EU, Directive 2014/25/EU, and Directive 2014/23/EU) promoted a different approach in both the employment context and in supplier diversity.…”

“…New and powerful terms were presented to go beyond and providing broader social benefits [11,12]. On the one hand, the directives increased the scope for contracting authorities to include social and environmental considerations in the design and execution of public tenders and, on the other hand, gave the member states some freedom to define national mechanisms to include social considerations in public procurement [10,12]. In this regard, Directive 2014/24/EU fosters contracting authorities to determine the most economically advantageous tender using social and environmental life cycle costing approach.…”

Conceptualizing the Regulator‐Buyer State in the European Union for the Exercise of Socially Responsible Public Procurement in Global Production Networks

“…A key factor for SRPP in GPNs set out by the directives is for member states to ensure compliance by contractors to the ILO CLS as a minimum requirement (EC, 2021). Member states at different levels of governments can voluntarily go beyond this requirement to include additional social criteria in procurement contracts, for example fair trade certifications (Sanchez‐Graells, 2019; Treumer and Comba, 2018).…”

“…Institutions, in particular procurement authorities and supporting organizations, are instruments of power because ‘while there is regulatory space in principle [for SRPP], the potential for its effective implementation in practice is severely limited by general constraints on the exercise of executive discretion, and by more general resource constraints’ (Sanchez‐Graells, 2019, p. 100). Implementing SRPP effectively requires capable institutions.…”