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Article

12 Mar 2020

Author:
House of Commons

UK: MP puts forward amendment to Environment Bill currently under discussion which would require Govt. to publish draft bill on environmental & human rights due diligence

"Environmental and human rights due diligence: duty to publish draft legislation", 10 March 2020

(1) The Secretary of State must, within the period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, publish a draft Bill on mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence which imposes a duty on specified commercial, financial and public sector persons to—

(a) carry out due diligence in relation to all environmental and human rights risks and impacts associated with the exercise of their functions, and

(b) identify, assess, prevent, or mitigate (where prevention is not possible) the risks so that the impacts are negligible...

(4)  In order to address, in particular, ecosystem conversion and degradation and deforestation and forest degradation (“deforestation and conversion”) the draft Bill must seek to ensure that all goods placed on the UK market ...—

(c) do not cause adverse environmental and human rights impacts including deforestation and conversion...

(7) The draft Bill must— ...

(b) provide proportionate, effective and deterrent sanctions...

(d) establish a system which ensures effective and appropriate redress for any person affected by environmental impacts and human rights violations; ...

Member’s explanatory statement

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a draft Bill on mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence within six months of the Act passing.

Timeline