{"id":29069,"date":"2019-04-12T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coreblog.prod.adnc.cambridge.org\/?p=29069"},"modified":"2019-04-12T14:16:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T13:16:43","slug":"what-effects-might-brexit-have-on-business-and-human-rights-in-the-uk-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2019\/04\/12\/what-effects-might-brexit-have-on-business-and-human-rights-in-the-uk-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"What Effects Might Brexit have on Business and Human Rights in the UK and Beyond?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Brexit deadline and the nature and even implementation of a transitional deal with the EU remain uncertain at the time of writing. The impact on business-related human rights protections is therefore equally uncertain, with multiple political factions in play. The Conservatives of the European Research Group<\/a> are hard-line Eurosceptics, seemingly willing to accept a no-deal Brexit, and supportive of extreme deregulation post-Brexit. Labour has a sizeable remain and soft Brexit grouping, while some favour Lexit<\/a>, a left-wing Brexit to allow more freedom to implement social policies. The recent pro-remain desertions<\/a> from the major parties is another complicating factor. This blog will describe some plausible business-related human rights risks domestically and internationally, on the assumption of a Conservative-led Brexit occurring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestically, workers\u2019 rights are extremely vulnerable. Boris Johnson argued in 2012 that Britain should \u2018scrap the Social Chapter<\/a>\u2019 that protects workers\u2019 rights including parental leave and equal opportunities, and more recently that the \u2018weight of employment regulation is now back-breaking<\/a>\u2019. Priti Patel has criticized the Agency Workers Directive, while many Tories have criticized the Working Hours Directive<\/a>, including Dominic Raab, previously Brexit Minister. Jacob Rees-Moog has stated that \u2018a Conservative government may wish to reduce [employment rights<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second important topic is safety, including health and safety at work and food regulations. A trade deal with the US may require permitting numerous practices, such as chlorinated chicken<\/a>, banned in the EU. Liam Fox<\/a>, as trade minister, voiced support for deregulation, under the guise of \u2018giving the public a choice over what they are eating\u2019. For Rees-Mogg<\/a>, \u2018there\u2019s a very long way you can go in rolling back emissions and safety standards.\u2019 Banking deregulation<\/a>, pro-business tax arrangements<\/a> and increased privatization<\/a> all pose risks to human rights protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internationally, the severe economic risks of Brexit may encourage bilateral investment treaties<\/a> (BITs) that include significant inducements to investors, including weaker human rights protections. Extraterritorial jurisdiction<\/a> over UK companies operating abroad could be limited, with forum non conveniens<\/a> possibly returning if the Recast Brussels Regulation<\/a> is not carried over. Access to remedy<\/a> could suffer as this regulation also guarantees the enforceability of judgements<\/a> between member states. Strengthening of the Modern Slavery Act<\/a> and the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights<\/a> can be assumed to be deprioritized in a deregulatory political climate. The UK would also not be party to a mooted overarching EU National Action Plan<\/a> on Business and Human Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various EU transparency and human rights due diligence policies<\/a> could also be abandoned. The EU Directive as regards disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings<\/a> and groups of undertakings requires public-interest companies with more than 500 employees to disclose relevant information \u2018relating to, as a minimum, environmental matters, social and employee-related matters, respect for human rights, anticorruption and bribery matters.\u2019 The EU Timber Trade Regulation<\/a> prohibits the sale of illegal timber and obliges operators relevant firms implement a due diligence system to ensure compliance. The EU Regulation on conflict minerals<\/a> adopted in 2017 defines supply chain due diligence obligations for importers of tin, tantalum and tungsten, their ores, and gold originating from conflict-affected and high-risk areas. The EU Directive on Public Procurement<\/a> also includes transparency requirements. Other EU-led BHR-related projects include the sustainable finance action<\/a> plan, promoting the SDGs<\/a>, and the UNGPs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the looming deadline, post-Brexit policies remain unknown. Under the current government, however, it is unlikely to advance business respect for human rights in the UK or beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Birchall is a Visiting Fellow at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong; Blog and Media Co-Editor, Business and Human Rights Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find <\/strong>a collection of Brexit-related content<\/strong><\/a> on Cambridge Core.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brexit deadline and the nature and even implementation of a transitional deal with the EU remain uncertain at the time of writing. The impact on business-related human rights protections is therefore equally uncertain, with multiple political factions in play. The Conservatives of the European Research Group are hard-line Eurosceptics, seemingly willing to accept a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":797,"featured_media":29101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[1963,5103,2087,5740],"coauthors":[3765],"class_list":["post-29069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law","category-social-sciences","tag-brexit","tag-business-and-human-rights","tag-business-and-human-rights-journal","tag-european-law"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/797"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29069"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}