ABColombia and Corporate Justice Coalition Joint Statement on UK Engagement on a UN Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights

Corporate Justice Coalition are a group of organisations and individuals who have come together to end corporate abuses of human rights and the environment.

15 October, 2025: As the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) embarks on the 11th negotiation session for a legally binding treaty on business and human rights, the undersigned 18 organisations call on the UK government to constructively engage in these treaty negotiations.

The treaty process is now entering a crucial phase, with a clear Methodology and Programme of Work for the Eleventh Session (October 20th to 24th) and an ambitious Roadmap for 2026, including an increased number of engagements, with a view to bringing forward a revised updated draft text in 2027. This is a critical moment in an important multilateral initiative that holds the promise of binding global standards and duties to regulate corporate behaviour throughout their value chains.

Existing power imbalances, including between the Global North and South, must not be reproduced, and the systemic inequalities and specific challenges faced by women and marginalised groups and communities, including Indigenous and other customary rights holders, should be addressed in the text through meaningful engagement both with civil society and affected communities.

The time for the UK to engage is now: to support a strong, gender-responsive treaty which helps prevent human rights and environmental abuses before they occur, holds corporations accountable for harm they cause and contribute to, and provides effective access to remedy for victims, affected persons and communities.

The British public, workers and trade unions and responsible UK businesses all want legally binding and internationally accepted rules to prevent human rights harms and environmental damage resulting from corporate activities. As momentum builds to secure an effective global treaty that holds companies to account when they fail to prevent the serious harms resulting from their activities, we call on the UK government to play its part in bringing this about, by engaging constructively in this UN process.

In parallel, the UK also urgently needs to reform its national legislation to ensure that companies registered or operating within the UK take effective action to prevent serious human rights abuses or environmental harms linked to their activities, and are held to account if they fail to do so. We warmly welcome the UK Government’s recent recognition that “concerns continue to be raised regarding the effectiveness of the UK’s regime in preventing human rights, labour rights and environmental harms in supply chains” and the review of its approach to ensuring responsible business conduct.

This treaty forms an important part of the solution – as is the urgent adoption of a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act at national level.

Our specific recommendations for the next round of negotiations include:

  • The Treaty should mandate human rights and environmental due diligence; legally enforceable standards are needed to influence corporate conduct and create a level playing field.
  • The Treaty should ensure victims can access justice (with a gender and intersectional approach), including robust remedies, burden-shifting mechanisms, and the elimination of legal barriers like forum non conveniens. Victims deserve real avenues to justice — not a patchwork of exceptions. Legal consistency is key to accountability.
  • The Treaty should also hold companies to account for abuses throughout the value chain, and reject automatic immunity through due diligence compliance. Transnational abuse requires transnational accountability; it is vital to ensure that corporations cannot outsource harm and escape liability.
  • Treaty provisions relating to jurisdiction should call for forum necessitatis, providing a broader jurisdictional scope to enhance victims’ legal standing, to ensure that it addresses jurisdictional gaps that presently allow corporate crimes to go unpunished.

We call on the UK Government to: 

  1. Adopt a rights-holder and victim-centred approach, and constructively support a strong Treaty that ends corporate impunity, particularly in transnational settings, and enables effective access to justice. 
  2. Engage with civil society organisations, affected communities and rights-holders, particularly women and historically marginalised groups ahead of, during and following the negotiation.
  3. Listen to all States and actively avoid reproducing existing power imbalances and hierarchies between the Global North and Global South. 
  4. Introduce national legislation to implement and complement international standards – ensuring UK businesses prevent human rights abuses and environmental harm in their operations and value chains and victims have access to justice. 

Signatories

  1. ABColombia
  2. ActionAidUK
  3. ACTSA
  4. CAFOD
  5. Christian Aid
  6. Corporate Justice Coalition
  7. Earthsight
  8. Environmental Justice Foundation
  9. Fairtrade Foundation
  10. Friends of the Earth
  11. Freedom united
  12. Global Justice Now
  13. Labour Behind the Label
  14. London Mining Network
  15. Peace Brigades International UK
  16. Trócaire
  17. UNISON
  18. Womankind Worldwide