Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment submission
Based on our ongoing work on international investment, as well as our recent conference focused on home country efforts to regulate foreign investment for sustainable development, we urge the U.K. Government to include in its revised NAP the issue of land rights as they relate to outward investment, particularly investment in large-scale agricultural, forestry, infrastructure, and extractive projects. Identifying land issues within the NAP will help alert U.K. investors to the particular human rights risks that arise with large-scale projects involving the transfer of land use rights. In addition, “home country measures” focused on sectors with significant tenure-related risks can help ensure that U.K. companies respect human rights and operate consistently with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, regardless of the operating environment and regulatory capacity of the host country.