by Mary Cullen

SCIAF is calling on the UK Government to follow the example of the EU and introduce a new law protecting human rights, the environment and the climate.

Around the world, companies, financial institutions and public bodies are linked to serious human rights abuses, worker exploitation and environmental harm, through their operations, products and services. This has a direct link to us in Scotland: some of the goods sold to us are linked to child labour, hazardous working conditions and pollution.

In December 2023 an agreement was reached on an EU-wide mandatory human rights and environmental law, concluding years of negotiations. Even though the UK is no longer in the EU, the new law will apply to UK companies which operate within its borders.

SCIAF’s Partner Advocacy Officer, Line Christensen, said:

‘The EU-wide mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence law is a step in the right direction. We see that UK companies continue to be connected to cases of human rights abuses and environmental destruction. Many of these abuses take place in the Global South. Hopefully, victims of corporate abuse will now have better access to justice’.

YouGov polling from 2022 showed four in five people in Britain want new laws to make sure businesses do more to stamp out environmental damage and exploitative practices in their operations. Line added: ‘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’.