Anna de Courcy Wheeler, Senior Programme Officer for the Freedom Fund, YES
For those seeking to protect and enforce labour rights, binding global legislation seems to be a clear and natural goal. However, the problem of entrenched slavery and forced labour in our supply chains is far from simple. Modern global supply chains are woven into an often-shifting and expanding web of suppliers, contractors, subcontractors and subsidiaries. These chains epitomise the complexities of our modern, interconnected world, and they present practical challenges which are unlikely to be resolved via a single legislative solution.
From a global standpoint, a new international convention on human rights due diligence in supply chains – one that would require governments to legislate efforts to fight modern-day slavery and forced labour in supply chains – has a great deal to recommend it. Such a convention could set global legally binding standards, as opposed to allowing for the propagation of piecemeal and inconsistent self-disclosure regulations. Such a piecemeal model could not only leave gaps in worker protections, it could also create an additional burden for multinational enterprises to report under different regimes. An international convention would also level the playing field for the businesses that are invested in bringing transparency to their supply chains and tackling modern-day slavery and forced labour.
