Forced labour is a common feature of global supply chains. In June 2014, reports about the use of slave labour in the Thai fishing industry dramatically reminded the British public about the labour practices of many supply chains. This followed recurrent reports about the use of slave labour by suppliers in the textile industry, particularly in Bangladesh. These kinds of human rights abuses occur in a range of industries where production has been outsourced to suppliers in the developing world.
No binding international human rights law on companies
Anyone reading these reports will usually wonder if there is no international law on those issues. The answer is a bit tricky. Yes, international law addresses slave labour in treaties, conventions and declarations. For example, Article 4 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that ‘no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.’ However, the difficulty with forced labour in global supply chains is that traditional legal concepts and globalisation do not easily fit together. The transnational nature of global supply chains poses a challenge for law as it cuts across territorial borders.
