Eliminating Corporate Exploitation: Examining Accountability Regimes as Means to Eradicate Forced Labor from Supply Chains

Author: Feasley, Ashley

Abstract: The existence of forced labor in a company’s supply chain represents the newest frontier of the global effort to eliminate forced labor. Corporations, beneficiaries of profits from products made with forced labor, represent the most nimble and most modern perpetrators of trafficking and exploitation. The negative publicity and consumer backlash that companies are facing for having forced labor in their supply chains reflects the new paradigm confronting corporate perpetrators with respect to international human rights. This article discusses four established regimes of accountability and reviews each regime’s efficacy in ensuring that corporations operate transparent, forced labor-free supply chains. The respective regimes: international regulation, market-based, civil liability, and domestic regulation, have achieved varying levels of success in recent years in an effort to make businesses accountable for ensuring forced labor-free supply chains. Analysis of accountability regimes and the successes and obstacles each regime has encountered in eliminating forced labor from corporate supply chains forcing companies to address forced labor maps progress that has occurred and also provides evaluation of what each accountability regime can provide to ensure businesses eliminate forced labor from their supply chains.

Keywords: accountability regimes, business and human rights, forced labor, supply chain