Human rights defenders have faced brutal reprisals for standing up to extractive industries with links to UK companies or investors, according to a report calling for a law obliging firms to do human rights and environmental due diligence...

Calling for a new act, PBI UK, one of 39 civil society groups in the Corporate Justice Coalition, says mandatory due diligence laws already exist in France, Germany and Norway while the EU has approved a directive on the matter.

... It says such a law should reverse the burden of proof on to businesses so that they are liable where they failed to prevent harm unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it from occurring.

... The report says more than 150 companies and investors, parliamentarians from across the political spectrum and four in five Britons (based on a YouGov poll) have backed a new act... The Department for Business and Trade said: “We are clear that no company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain, no matter where they operate in the world, and that businesses should act where they find issues.

“We have also strengthened the rules on excluding suppliers linked to modern slavery from public procurement opportunities. We keep our approach to how the UK can best tackle forced labour and environmental harms in supply chains under continual review.”