The European Commission, member states and parliament agreed on Tuesday morning on a new directive against goods made with forced labor. Member states must now approve that law, which would come into force by 2027, in a vote.
That’s a boost after last week’s debacle. Then unions, NGOs and civil society rallied as member states rejected an ambitious proposal on ethical corporate supply lines at the last minute. That ‘duty of care law’ was years in the making. “A small group of politicians and business leaders are abandoning the many workers who have to do forced labor for private companies,” fulminated the NGO Anti-Slavery.
1. What is the difference between this directive against forced labor and the rejected law?
The law on ethical supply lines or the duty of care law obliged the business world to preventively re-examine its entire business operations and to carry out more inspections at all their distant suppliers. They would have to tackle several malpractices: environmental crimes, all kinds of human rights violations and exploitation. This should also happen as standard everywhere in the world.
This directive against forced labor is more limited in scope. The law does not look at all abuses, only at situations in which people have to work without pay or consent. It is not a general obligation to work preventively, but rather a correction mechanism afterwards.
This will apply to certain “high-risk regions”. If the Commission decides that there is “clear evidence of forced labor in a sector” in such a region, it can deny goods from that region access to the European market. Although companies still have the opportunity to argue that everything is running smoothly.
2. Is that law a good idea?
For those who consider ethics in business important, it is a hopeful signal. “Any company that feels unfair competition due to forced labor should welcome this,” said MEP Raphaël Glucksmann of the Social Democratic Group. In practice, however, the law seems fragile. “It is extremely difficult to prove that there is forced labor and the European Union requires a higher burden of proof than, for example, the US,” notes the NGO Anti-Slavery.
“Forced labor regularly occurs in the production of our clothes or mobile phone batteries,” says Sara Matthieu, member of the European Parliament for Groen. “Europe should not be a sales market for modern slavery.”
The law seems especially suitable for extensively documented situations where a government requires forced labor. Read: Xinjiang, the Chinese province where Beijing is exploiting the Uighurs. Or possibly North Korea. But most modern slaves in the world do not work for a government, but for private companies and their shadowy chain of suppliers. The left-wing groups in parliament had also hoped for mandatory compensation for affected employees, but this has not yet been introduced.
3. How will Europe enforce compliance?
That depends on the next Commission. The member states must set up a kind of ‘network’ to detect forced labor. But for now there is hardly any budget. Moreover, a small team in Brussels would not be able to thoroughly monitor all kinds of business practices in distant countries. So political will will also play a role. Will the next Commission dare to build a fence around Xinjiang? Will she also tackle North Korea? Or Kazakhstan, where child labor in the cotton fields is difficult to eradicate? And what about India, where eleven million people work as modern slaves?
With so many open questions surrounding implementation, Europe seems to be taking tougher action against intellectual theft for the time being than against products made from modern slavery.
4. Who wins?
This law is a boost for the Uighur diaspora, although import bans remain a double-edged sword: they can make the economy and therefore living conditions in Xinjiang itself worse. The United States can also be happy. US Customs has been allowed to ban products from Xinjiang for four years. Washington has long asked that allies follow suit. There is a lot of speculation as to whether European solar panel makers stand to gain from this proposal. Their Chinese competitors work with raw materials from Xinjiang. However, everything depends on the concrete implementation.
“Supply lines in China are so intransparent that you cannot even distinguish the chains between Xinjiang and other Chinese provinces,” Adrian Zenz, China expert and researcher at the American Victims of Communism Foundation, previously told news site Euractiv. “Preventing forced labor may require rethinking business operations across the country.” The law may be a step forward, but it walks a very thin line between geopolitics, protectionism and concern for human rights. And that will not be of much concrete use to the millions of modern slaves in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America for the time being.
