UK: Corporate Justice Coalition publishes model law on business and human rights & lawmaker introduces draft to House of Lords
"How does a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act work?", 18 June 2026
This law is designed to prevent corporate abuse before it happens, placing a legal duty on UK public bodies and companies doing business in the UK to prevent human rights and environmental harms in their own operations, subsidiaries, and value chains, including by carrying out ‘due diligence’ to identify, prevent and address harm.
It then introduces civil liability and criminal penalties for those that fail to take reasonable action, creates an enforcement body with the powers to investigate and penalise non-compliance and creates new mechanisms to improve access to justice for victims.
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Finally, this proposal would empower a UK enforcement body and UK courts to ensure victims receive appropriate remedy for harm. This would include not only financial compensation but also orders on companies to cease harmful activity, clean up environmental damage and carry out other appropriate action.
In Parliament, the model law is known as the “Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill”.
Read the full text of the model law here.