Prior to the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 there were those who predicted with some trepidation that the Act would have adverse, perhaps dire, consequences for business. Twelve years after the commencement of the Act, this article examines whether those fears were justified. Key requirements of business are identified, and the impact of the Act (in respect of its influences on both public and private law) is assessed in relation to those requirements. The conclusion is that in general the Human Rights Act has not been detrimental to business and, perhaps more surprisingly, that sometimes it has led to identifiable advantages for that sector.

The Human Rights Act (“HRA”) received the Royal Assent on 9 November 1998. It was one of the earliest manifesto commitments to be delivered by the then new Labour Government, and would have been earlier still had it not been for the intervention of other, more pressing, Parliamentary business. As the idea of human rights made its way from political theatre to enacted law, so it found itself scrutinised by a range of parties whose interest in the term had up to then been either tokenistic or non-existent. Into the latter camp fell the world of business, populated by actors for whom the acronym HR conjured up the hiring and firing of people, not the search to make their lives better. So, when Government delayed the date for the measure’s implementation in order to prepare the public sector for the rights revolution it had seemingly almost accidentally wrought,1 the business community went about its own due diligence, half scared, half excited about what lay in store.