Politics Home Article | Making 2026 a year for human rights

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This article was commissioned by the Total Politics Impact team for the Legislative Lookahead 2026.

In 2026, bills being considered by Parliament will provide legislative opportunities to act on some of the JCHR’s findings. One is the Hillsborough Law, which the JCHR unanimously called for in 2024. 

Thirty-six years ago, as a Liverpool MP, I visited the families who had loved ones, including children, among the fatalities and injured. Grief was compounded by institutional lies and obfuscation. Sir Keir Starmer is right that “the British state failed the families and victims of Hillsborough to an almost inhuman level”. 

The JCHR was appalled by evidence of institutional lies, closing of ranks, cover-ups, smears, and wicked vilification – with the public purse used to bankroll misconduct and malfeasance, the camouflaging of truth. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill’s duty of candour is very welcome. But to bring to an end the depressingly familiar pattern of cover-ups and concealment, we must do more. I would personally like to see the powers of the Independent Public Advocate strengthened. 

For those fighting to expose the truth in a range of public tragedies – everything from infected blood to Windrush, Chinook, Grenfell, Manchester Arena, Covid, grooming gangs, Primodos, atomic test victims, Horizon, and more – adequate resources must be made available. 

“Here is an opportunity to underline the UK’s belief in the rule of law” 

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But in the wider defence of human rights and the upholding of justice, there are other things we can also do. In two of its 2025 reports – on Daesh atrocities and the Crime and Policing Bill – the JCHR unanimously called for the introduction of universal jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court Act 2001. The Commons International Development Committee has made the same call. 

The JCHR’s amendment has been tabled by an all-party group of peers to the Crime and Policing Bill. 

It has the support of a wide range of more than thirty non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, victims/survivors, and legal experts – including the Burma Campaign UK, IBAHRI, REDRESS and the Clooney Foundation for Justice. The amendment seeks to close an accountability gap for international crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes – as defined by the Rome Statute.  

Although the ICCA 2001 does currently enable prosecution for international crimes if they were perpetrated in the UK or committed by UK citizens or residents overseas, there is an illogical lacuna. A limitation in the act means that if an alleged perpetrator happens to be in the UK, they cannot be prosecuted for these crimes. 

So, for example, a Russian military leader or others alleged to be responsible for atrocities in Ukraine fly into London for a shopping spree in Harrods, we cannot do anything. If a Taliban leader responsible for the Hazara genocide or persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan comes to attend the graduation of their offspring, we cannot do anything. Or, if a member of the Sudanese military junta, or a quartermaster of the militias accused of genocide in Darfur, comes to check up on their UK property portfolio, they can do so at leisure and with impunity. 

All we can do is watch as they wine and dine in the UK and sneer at our justice system, which cannot touch them.  

For the first time, the JCHR amendment would allow the prosecution, with the consent of our Law Officers, of anyone physically present in the UK, regardless of their nationality or residency, for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Closing a long-standing accountability gap would prevent the UK from becoming a bolt hole or haven for those accused of international crimes. 

With such crimes on the rise globally, here is an opportunity to underline the UK’s belief in the rule of law, to enhance national security, and to help build safer communities both at home and overseas. 2026 is our opportunity to do it.