During her leadership campaign last month the prime minister, Theresa May, promised to “get tough on irresponsible behaviour in big business”. This is a promise we at Amnesty hope May sticks to – particularly as this week marks two anniversaries that highlight the UK’s appalling track record of standing by while companies registered on its soil behave shamefully abroad.

How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster Read more

Four years ago this week, security forces in South Africa shot and killed 34 striking mine workers who were protesting at the abusive and exploitative conditions they were enduring.

During a government-led inquiry into the deaths, the UK mining company Lonmin was compelled to admit that many of its workers live in terrible squalor – without electricity, adequate toilets or running water. A senior executive conceded that the conditions there were “truly appalling”.

This week also marks 10 years since over 540,000 litres of toxic waste was dumped at 18 sites across Abidjan in Ivory Coast, the biggest capital city in west Africa.

More than 100,000 people sought medical attention after the dumping, and the authorities reported 15 deaths. The health problems were similar for all victims: skin irritations, headaches and breathing problems. A major medical emergency ensued in a country barely emerging from several years of armed conflict and political crisis. The United Nations is due to announce later this year whether the dump sites have finally been decontaminated.

The operations that brought about one of the worst corporate-created disasters this century were coordinated from an office in London by executives and employees of the multinational commodities trader Trafigura. Damning internal emails show how the chance of profiting from cheap gasoline sales was a key factor behind the creation of this toxic waste. Emails also show that the company was aware before starting the process that created the waste that it would be hazardous and difficult to dispose of.

Sadly, these company-made disasters are not isolated cases. Elsewhere in west Africa, Amnesty has long documented the failure of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to clean up decades of oil spills in the Niger Delta, leaving communities that depend on fishing and farming devastated. Several powerful UK multinationals have been implicated in serious human rights abuses abroad that are linked to potential violations of UK criminal law, such as sanctions breaches and complicity in torture and killings in Myanmar, Colombia, Tanzania, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Amnesty has long documented the failure of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to clean up decades of oil spills in the Niger Delta.’ Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

By allowing these abuses to go unpunished, the UK is, in effect, incentivising its companies to operate to unacceptable standards overseas, while leaving communities adversely affected and families of victims to spend years campaigning for justice. This would be much less likely to happen if there weren’t gaps in UK law which allowed companies to take advantage of weaker regulation abroad, even to the point of committing human rights abuses. This has left a trail of disaster around the world and devastated local communities.

The reluctance of UK authorities to take action stands out in these cases. Pressed by Amnesty International to investigate Trafigura’s role in the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan, UK regulatory bodies have played a game of pass-the-parcel until making the astonishing admission that they lack the strong laws, resources and expertise to take on a corporate giant.

What is required now are corporate rules that are fit for the age of powerful multinationals which operate across borders. A good start would be to introduce a new version of Section 7 of the UK Bribery Act to be made applicable in human rights cases. This would create an offence of failing to prevent serious human rights abuses within a company’s global operations.

Such a law would make the company accountable for abuses unless it could show it had adequate procedures in place to prevent them – a strong incentive for companies to proactively ensure they respect human rights. This “due diligence” principle has become standard practice for bribery.

Even where the behaviour of Lonmin, Trafigura, Shell and others does not constitute a crime, nurturing a compliance culture for human rights would make it harder for abuses to drag on unchecked for years and would give victims a realistic chance of securing justice and redress. Almost every major economy in the world now criminalises companies for foreign bribery. But few have legislated for illegal acts that lead to serious human rights abuses overseas.

If May is serious about tackling corporate crime, she will need to put in place stronger laws and enforcement. Otherwise corporate impunity will prevail and continue to stain the reputation of UK plc in many parts of the world.