This parliamentary briefing argues that we urgently need a new UK law to hold companies to account when they fail to prevent human rights abuses and environmental harms in their global value chains. A new law is called for by UK civil society organisations, businesses, investors, and more than 100,000 people in the UK who...
This briefing for MPs and Peers outlines the urgent need for a new law to hold companies to account when they fail to prevent human rights abuses and environmental harms.
Ten years on from the introduction of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), voluntary initiatives have failed to have a meaningful impact on tackling abuse in business operations and supply chains. This includes modern slavery, unsafe working conditions, attacks on human rights defenders including trade unions, pollution of land and water,...
Despite the efforts made by civil society groups, an amendment tabled in the Commons in 2020, a series of interventions by Peers during report stage, and several amendments being put forwards in the House of Lords, Schedule 17 leaves very significant and concerning gaps in human rights protections due to: The lack of reference in...
The European Commission is tabling a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive which obliges EU Member States to introduce ‘mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence’ laws. The Commission’s move builds on advances already made in Europe through an emerging new generation of corporate accountability laws. In many instances, these laws will apply to UK companies...
Schedule 16 in the UK’s Environment Bill seeks to tackle the UK’s contribution to global deforestation. The proposal establishes a legal framework to address the environmental footprint of the UK’s consumption of forest risk commodities by placing a due diligence requirement on companies. Given the prevalence of human rights impacts and risks associated with forest...
Current law and policy – including the Modern Slavery Act – have proved wholly inadequate to both prevent UK companies from contributing to human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or to compel companies to address human rights abuses in their broader supply chains.
This submission has been submitted to the BEIS Committee on behalf of the members and endorsers of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, a coalition of over 280 Uyghur representative groups.
The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights is undertaking a new project to chart a course for a decade of action on business and human rights - read our submission to the call for inputs.
