In November 2023, Baroness Young introduced an ambitious Private Members Bill, entitled ‘The Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill’ (COPAD) into the UK House of Lords with the aim of protecting against corporate human rights and environmental harms.  In the UK, public authorities (and to some extent, private entities who perform public functions) are already subject to human rights obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998 (the outworkings of which are made clear in Lord Scott’s judgment in YL v Birmingham City Council (2007)).  The COPAD Bill seeks to extend a duty to corporate actors to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence or risk facing a variety of criminal and civil sanctions.

In her recent blog for Business and Human Rights in Ireland, Dr Marisa McVey, Institute Fellow: Rights and Social Justice, provides an insight into this Bill, in light of the growing momentum to strengthen corporate accountability of human rights, Brexit, the ambitious scope and challenges of implementation.

Read the blog here.

The Business and Human Rights in Ireland blog series is dedicated to tracking and analysing developments relating to business and human rights in Ireland.  It aims to address legal and policy issues, as well as highlighting human rights concerns raised by the activities of Irish companies or multinational corporations based in Ireland.  The series is co-ordinated by Dr Shane Darcy, a lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway.

 

Dr Marisa McVey

Marisa is a Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, School of Law and a Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.  Marisa’s expertise lies at the intersection of business and human rights.  Her research critically examines current and potential mechanisms of corporate accountability for human and environmental rights, and imagines alternatives for a just transition to a sustainable and equitable society.  Marisa is the lead for the project to establish a Northern Ireland Business and Human Rights Index – a collaboration between Queen’s University Belfast, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the European Network of Human Rights Institutions.