United Kingdom: parliament calls for due diligence legislation to combat forced labour

The report published on 25 July by the UK parliamentary Committee on Human Rights is unequivocal: companies are not seeking to find out whether their supply chains present risks and have no incentive to do so. As a result, products linked to forced labour are being sold on the British market. “Legal requirements are weak, and enforcement mechanisms are virtually non-existent,” says Alexander Trautrims, professor of supply chain management at the University of Nottingham. These requirements are contained in the 2015 Modern Slavery Act: they require companies with an annual turnover of more than £36 million (€42 million) to publish an annual statement detailing the measures taken to combat forced labour in their supply chains.…