Corporate due diligence

Call for corporations to ensure due diligence carried out in supply chains

The main thrust of human rights activity since the war and the creation of the UN Declaration has been at governments and trying to improve their behaviour. Campaigns have been waged to stop the use of torture, arbitrary detention, unfair trials and ‘disappearing’ people the regime does not like.

There is now however, an increasing awareness that corporations are key players and, via their supply chains, can have enormous effects on the environment and on the human rights of millions of people in their supply chains. A parliamentary briefing by the Corporate Justice Commission says:

This parliamentary briefing argues that we urgently need a new law to hold companies to account when they fail to prevent human rights abuses and environmental harms. This law should mandate companies to undertake human rights and environmental due diligence’ across their supply chains.

A Failure to Prevent law is vital to ensure the pursuit of a global green transition and a just recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. It would help the UK to deliver its “Global Britain” vision, retain its leadership on business and human rights, and ensure a level playing field for UK business.

Our proposed law would bring the UK in line with its international commitments on human rights and the environment and build on a 2017 recommendation for such a law from the UK’s Joint Committee on Human Rights. It mirrors existing provisions in the UK Bribery Act and matches developments across several states and the European Union.

Corporate Justice Coalition, October 2020

Amnesty and other groups including the TUC and Friends of the Earth have joined in this call.

Much of this activity is hidden from us. We simply see the end product in our shops without always realising that it may have been produced by forced labour, or even slave labour. Recently, it was alleged that the Chinese were using Uyghur slaves to produce cotton. There is also environmental destruction to extract minerals or timber.

There should perhaps be a greater shift in attention towards the activities of these corporate giants who operate almost outside any law.