Closing the gap

Evidence for effective human rights due diligence from five years measuring company efforts to address forced labour

Momentum is growing for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence, with companies and investors lining up alongside civil society, workers, governments and unions to call for effective laws to oversee rights protections. At the same time, voluntary efforts to eliminate forced labour from global supply chains are failing. A decade after the introduction of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), most of the world’s largest companies have yet to implement even baseline human rights due diligence. This report provides new evidence of the urgent need for voluntary action to be strengthened with robust regulatory requirements for companies to identify human rights risks and prevent abuse. It also underlines the key elements of effective regulation to ensure due diligence does not become just another administrative ‘box-ticking’ exercise by companies.

Studies / Research / Report
KnowTheChain
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
23 pages
English
UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights [UNGPs]
Labour Rights
Due Diligence
Modern Slavery