“Good Business? Analysis of the UK Government Action Plan on Business & Human Rights” - December 2013 

The UK broke new ground in becoming the first State to produce a National Action Plan for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles…The launch…signalled a strong intent from the Government to take the Guiding Principles seriously…From CORE’s perspective, the process of  developing the action plan was a positive one… However the early signs of the government’s willingness to address some of the implementation challenges are not…The proposed UK-Colombia Bilateral Investment Treaty will make it more difficult for those harmed by the operations of UK companies in Colombia to obtain a remedy. Within the EU, the UK is actively trying to dilute a proposed Reporting Directive…These inconsistencies need to be ironed out before they become a pattern…What is lacking is any sense of how these will work on the ground, and whether the political will exists to make them happen…