The UK’s House of Lords is set to debate a Bill that holds companies to account for human rights and environmental harms and facilitates access to justice

On 10 May, the House of Lords will debate The Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill (COPAD Bill). The Bill sets out the private and public sectors’ responsibility to respect human rights and the environment throughout their operations, supply and value chains. If such a law were introduced in the UK, it would plug the current accountability gap and ensure that harms to indigenous and forest peoples’ human rights, and the environments they expertly steward and defend, are prevented, addressed and remedied.  

For more information on the key provisions in the Bill, see this brief Information Note. 

An overarching UK corporate accountability law that incentivises tangible positive change wherever human rights and environmental harms take place, and that provides proper avenues for justice and effective remedies for affected rightsholders, is long overdue. Having an overarching approach to regulating businesses, financial institutions and public authorities would contribute to systemic change across all sectors. 

Given that multiple negative impacts on human rights and the environment are caused and contributed to by, and/or directly linked to the UK’s private and public sectors, the current lack of such a law is a major, unacceptable accountability gap that must be plugged. Questions about the legal liability of UK domiciled businesses, financial organisations and public authorities, and what effective remedies are available in the UK for affected rightsholders have recently been raised by The UN Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as part of the UK’s 7th Periodic Review. 

One law alone cannot be a silver bullet; but if a law based on the provisions of the COPAD Bill were enacted in future, it would constitute a significant shift of power in favour of those who suffer the consequences of hyper-globalisation and ever-increasing demand for commodities. The introduction of such a law in the UK is critical for indigenous and forest peoples given they experience a myriad of human rights and environmental harms due to mining, logging, agriculture, oil and gas, carbon markets and renewable energy projects that dispossess them of their ancestral lands, territories and resources, violate their right to self-determination and threaten the survival of their cultures, languages and knowledge systems.  

National laws are often inadequate when it comes to protecting indigenous and forest peoples’ internationally recognised human rights. The COPAD Bill, which requires compliance with international human rights law, would support the fulfilment of indigenous and forest peoples’ human rights in practice. The responsibility for businesses and financial institutions to respect human rights is one that exists independently from state obligations. However, it is commonplace that companies operating in tropical forest counties do not respect the human rights of indigenous and forest peoples, particularly their rights to their lands, territories and resources and to give or withhold their free, prior and informed consent to projects that may affect them.  

Downstream companies with global supply chains, and financial institutions who invest in companies in the UK and elsewhere, also have the responsibility to respect internationally recognised human rights. The failure to comply with international human rights law, as well as internationally recognised standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, leads to land-related conflicts. Indigenous and forest peoples who alone or collectively mobilise against human rights and environmental violations by companies are met with smear campaigns, criminalisation, threats, violence and are increasingly being killed. 

By choosing to take the reins and introducing a corporate accountability law, the UK would show that it takes seriously its own responsibilities and commitments under international human rights law to protect, fulfil and advance human rights,  as well as commitments made as part of the G7 in 2022 and under The Sustainable Development Goals (2015), The Paris Agreement (2016), and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), amongst others.