Tracing the Social Sustainability Discourse within EU Law: the Success of the “Labour-Rights-as-Human-Rights” Approach*

This essay aims at tracing the tortuous path of the social sustainability discourse within EU Law against the background of the integrated social-green transition, originating from a different awareness of their inextricable entanglement, fed by a renewed interest for human rights, which seem to prevail as interpretational code of the employment/social issues, above all in a globalized economy. Actually, undertakings and financial operators are confronted with a growing engagement of the EU in favor of individuals as members of the society, workers, investors and costumers, whose social, employment & human rights shall be protected and guaranteed. At the same time, it is apparent that undertakings and financial operators play a key role in pursuing environmental and social objectives when they conduct sustainable economic activities and investments. An interdependence that, if properly regulated, may activate a virtuous circle to the advantage of the whole humankind.