Thursday 25 July 2019

Modern Slavery reporting laws: a study

One way in which the 'business and human rights' agenda is manifesting in national-level laws is through legislation -- most recently in Australia -- to require larger firms to report periodically on risks of 'modern slavery' within their operations and supply chains.

We have produced a report on how Australian firms appear to be preparing to reporting under the 2018 Modern Slavery Act.

Is the Act at risk of become a mere tick-box exercise, or will it help drive a more fundamental transformation of approaches to human rights risks in supply chains:

"... Despite mixed levels of awareness, a common refrain in interviews was that the reporting requirement was a ‘conversation starter’ (including, importantly, within firms) even if not a ‘conversation changer’, although for some it had achieved the latter..."

Here is a link to the report (with M. Azizul Islam and Justine Nolan).

Jo

Ps: for some recent blogs on reporting laws on Modern Slavery, see this post (and links within).