The UK House of Lords voted to amend the Trade Bill on Monday to include performance of human rights risk assessments in proposed trade agreements, as well as revocation of trade agreements with countries that are found by the High Court of England and Wales to have committed genocide.

The bill was first introduced in the House of Commons earlier this year, with the aim of implementing international trade agreements post-Brexit as well as establishing the Trade Remedies Authority to deal with the UK’s new framework.

The first amendment, called “amendment 8” and approved by a vote of 297 to 221, requires the performance of human rights risk assessments in proposed trade agreements so as to comply with the UK’s international treaties and obligations. If serious human rights violations are found, the proposed trade agreement is to be withdrawn. Lord Collins of Highbury, in introducing this amendment, noted that serious violations included, “genocide, torture, servitude and compulsory labour.”

The second amendment, called “amendment 9” and approved by a vote of 287 to 161, allows the High Court of England and Wales to, as Lord Alton of Liverpool puts it, “make a predetermination of genocide if it believes that the evidence substantiates the high threshold set out in the 1948 UN Convention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” Lord Alton further insisted that the court would not be performing criminal prosecutions, but rather establishing whether there is “sufficient evidence” to support the conclusion of genocide. If the court comes to this conclusion, the trade agreement is to be revoked.

Viscount Younger of Leckie, in speaking for the government, opposed the two amendments, stressing that the court’s power to revoke trade agreements would, “strike at the heart of the separation of powers in Britain’s constitutional system,” and that there are no current plans to secure trade agreements with China.

The bill is still currently in the report stage in the House of Lords.