Repeal of the Human Rights Act and Bill of Rights
In June 2022, the government submitted an invoice to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and update it with a Bill of Rights. This law, which according to many civil society organizations, would particularly weaken the coverage of rights in the United Kingdom and make it difficult to comply with claims. under the European Convention on Human Rights before national courts, it was presented without the option of pre-legislative scrutiny through the relevant parliamentary committees, despite its collective call for the government to do so. In addition to introducing far-reaching adjustments that would be the ability of marginalized teams to assert their rights, the Justice Department’s consultation procedure failed to ensure the full participation of many people with disabilities. Although Prime Minister Liz Truss’s new cabinet suspended the law in September, considerations remain about its reintroduction in a changed form.
Recommendations:
Business and human rights
The UK country report describes its dedication to the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, progress in developing a national action plan and the status quo of the OECD National Contact Point. In May 2022, a package of legislative reforms outlined plans to reform the Modern Slavery Act 2015, replacing it with a new Modern Slavery Act. The invoice has not yet been published; however, the leaked program falls short of the systemic reforms that were sought to address forced labour in the global supply chains of corporations operating in the UK. The proposal has many flaws; It does not establish a legal responsibility for corporations to map and publicly disclose their chains of origin, does not mention the need for corporations to perform due diligence on their purchasing practices, and does not engage in enforcing import restrictions on forced hard labor when corporations source from specific suppliers do not lead to time-limited corrective actions.
Recommendations:
Economic and social rights
Global inflationary pressures, specifically on the price of fuel and food, are affecting the UK and other countries. However, IMF research shows that the effect of inflation is more asymmetric than in most other European countries. In the UK, the living burden of the poorest 20% of families is expected to increase approximately twice as much as that of the richest families. National teams have expressed serious considerations about the popular way of life of low-income families. The UK government has failed to take meaningful steps to tackle these problems in order to protect people’s rights to a sufficiently good life and similar rights to food, housing and social security.
Recommendations:
Abusive financing in Bahrain
Through the Gulf Strategy Fund (GSF), the UK government supports and budgets Bahrain-led and Bahrain-owned capacity development and reform programmes implicated in serious human rights violations. The GSF supported Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior and its ombudsman, its special investigations unit and security agencies implicated in the abuse of at least 8 men recently on death row. Human Rights Watch documented how these men were convicted and sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials based mainly or solely on confessions received under duress, with lower courts and appeals rejecting and failing to investigate credible allegations of torture interrogations and denying the fairness of the accused. Right to trial and due process.
Recommendations:
Rights of refugees and migrants
In April 2022, the UK signed an Asylum Partnership Agreement with Rwanda to deport asylum seekers arriving in the UK through abnormal migration channels. These asylum seekers will be processed under Rwanda’s asylum formula and, if identified as refugees, will be granted refugee status. there, with Rwanda processing rejected applications. This is a transparent derogation from the UK’s daily jobs and obligations abroad towards asylum seekers and refugees. Rwanda cannot be considered a “safe third country” for asylum seekers. human rights violations through Rwanda’s army, police, national intelligence services and judicial authorities. Lately, the regime is facing legal challenges.
Recommendations:
Women’s rights and violence.
More than 10 years after its signature, the United Kingdom ratified the Istanbul Convention on 21 July 2022. However, it did so with reservations on articles 44 and 59. Article 44 considers the prosecution of British citizens and citizens for offences committed outdoors. territory. Article 59 obliges countries to adopt measures to protect migrant victims of violence whose prestige of residence depends on a wife or wife who is or becomes violent. The United Kingdom stated that it would apply the reservation to article 59 pending the assessment of migrant victims assistance programme; A regime widely criticized as “totally inadequate”, in which the need for greater shielding for migrant women victims of violence is already evident. This reservation leaves those women dependent on their abusers without safe access to very important help and a way to escape violence.
In July, the UK amended a multinational declaration on freedom of faith and trust and gender equality to commitments to physical autonomy and fitness and sexual and reproductive rights. 22 countries had signed the original declaration; Only 8 have pointed to the amended declaration. Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands publicly opposed the adjustments and refused to sign the new declaration. Only Malta, where abortion is criminalized, has added its signature to the revised declaration.
Recommendations: